Bell Canada in Supreme Court today Dec 4

Bell Canada presented their case in the Supreme Court of Canada that 18 Canadian judges including 3 Provincial Court of Appeals judges, erred in law, by not disallowing foreign dishes in Canada.

According to first hand reports, the Supreme Court judges seemed to be falling asleep before noon & could have already decided the case before Bell lawyers began their presentations.

On a similiar note of BS on Expressvu: in a submission to the CRTC on an appeal by local broadcasters to have DTH operators "Carry One, Carry All" in a marketplace; BCE claims that they have set aside 28 (not a mistake 2:cool: transponders for HD service after NIMIQ 2 joins NIMIQ 1 and therefore have no space for additional non revenue generating locals.

Gotta laugh at Bell Canada - they'll say anything with a straight face ---- 28 transponders for HD service

The hearing specifically involved an appeal by Bell Express View for injunctive relief against a Canadian "dealer", CanAm Sat that sold hacking equipment. There's been no decision, of course, at this stage, but if Bell is successful, it ends the deception that hacking U.S. encrypted satellite pay-TV signals is "completely legal" in Canada. It would also effectively muzzle a thriving cottage industry in Canada of supplying hacking paraphenalia on both sides of the border. To the dismay of the loosley-organized hackers who funded CanAm Sat's legal team, the learned justices rejected outright any discussion of the "personal freedoms" issues (What, freedom to steal?) of the Canadian Charter of Freedoms that the hackers had been counting on. The presentations could only address the interpretation of the Canadian Radio Comunnications Act's vague language regarding "unauthorized signals". DirecTV requested and was granted "intervener" status to present 15 minutes of oral arguments. Bell's (and the Crown's) position is that reception and decryption of foreign DBS signals are illegal and subject to criminal and civil action. CanAm Sat's (and the hackers') position is that only encrypted pay-tv signals originating under the jurisdiction of the Canadian RCA are subject to Canadian law. So, now we await a hopefully disappointing decision for the hackers.

This could be a huge satelllite topic that could shape the industry forever.

I would like to keep this thread open, but I do not want to see it turn into hacking talk. If it does the thread will be closed immediately.

What are peoples feelings on this case?

I think they should open up the boarders and let anyone from anywhere subscribe to whatever services they want. People are willing to pay for it one way or another.

Scott

If canadians want to subscribe to US DBS let them as long as they pay. But there is probably too much hacking to be going on to even try to enforce this. As long as BEV is trying to stop hacking of DBS systems I say more power to Bell.

Steve

Scott, you touched on the central problem that B.E.V. wants remedied - gray as well as black market reception in Canada. Personally I agree that it would give Canadians more choice if they could sub to U.S. providers. But, there's been substantial public money spent in Mooseland trying to get a domestic DBS industry going, and effectively nurturing it through grants from Industrie Canada. Allowing unrestricted subbing of U.S. DBS puts the matter at cross purposes with Ottawa's policies. I'm only saying that Canada has its own canoe to row in this matter, and they've been historically sensitive to U.S. economic pressure in the past. Where the current situation impacts the U.S. is when any Canadian with circuit board etching, wave soldering experience, and enough credit to put it all together in his garage can start a lucrative business supplying card writers, etc. to people on either side of the border. (CanAm Sat was servicing both the gray and black markets, by the way.) And that impacts DirecTV's and Dish Network's bottom line, since supplying DirecTV hacking equipment to the U.S. steals potential U.S. subscribers from both services. On the Canadian side, there are a LOT of people UNwilling to pay for the service. They figure as long as it's "perfectly legal" to hack, why bother with the hassle and monthly expense of a gray market subscription. Add in that a depressing number of Provincial superior and appellate courts have ducked the legality issues involved because of vagueness in what constitutes "unauthrized reception", and, ergo: December 4, 2001.

A obvious solution would be sharing the bandwidth with the US, elminate duplicates, and having sub money go to the company in the appropiate country. Its coming, only a matter of time.....

The lawyer for DirecTv was asked directly by one of the Supreme Court judges about grey/gray market. He responded that they immediately cutoff Canadian subscribers. One of the Defendants lawyers then asked when was the last time DirecTv ran a database check on credit card issuing bank numbers.

BCE and Expressvu have been so two faced about this, allowing dealers and Bell World franchisees to market to US clients via internet and EBay.

On the issue of unsecure encryption, that is the responsibility of the provider. Many of us went through the VC debacle, when GI (now Motorola) had to bite the bullet and develop VCII+. It is up to Directv, Echostar and Expressvu to address their own problems themselves and not to cost all the taxpayers of both the US and Canada, the law enforcement and court costs that come about only because of their shortcomings with their businesses.

In my mind, all three are guilty of being corporate welfare bums in this area.

Bob, your "obvious solution" might make perfect sense from a technical standpoint, but it'll be a hard sell to Canada's politicians. A depressingly recurrent theme among Canadians revolves around the notion of how much the U.S. dominates Canada's economy and culture. On that note, did anyone else notice the reserved composure and pained expression on Jean Chretien's puss when he visited the White House to show solidarity after September 11? Wasn't sure whether his display indicated distaste at having been "summoned" to the U.S. for what amounted to a Presidential photo-op, or if the poor guy had to pee real bad.