DirecTV Files Piracy Lawsuits

[Richard King]

DirecTV filed lawsuits in federal court in New York and Philadelphia against six individuals it claims were setting up false subscription accounts and illegally activating receivers. The company said its suits allege the defendants, Michael Grant, Rylon Grant and Jean Grant, of Brooklyn, N.Y., along with 59 unidentified defendants (listed as John Does in the complaint); and Larry Osborne, Victoria Osborne and Jon Owens, of Philadelphia, and 44 John Does, created false subscription accounts and illegally activated access cards and receivers to enable others to receive DirecTV programming without authorization or proper payment. More on the lawsuits at SkyRETAILER: http://www.skyretailer.com.


From Skyreport.com June 28, 2005

[cboylan3]

"DirecTV allege the defendants......intercepting encrypted satellite signals without proper authorization or payment. "


Maybe i'm missing something here, but since their access cards are secure (as per D* states themselves), the only way to get a card turned on is for D* to activate it...correct? By D* activating it, they are then authorizing that card to receive satellite signals...correct? If they activated it and have not received payment then they would have deactivated the card...correct?

I think they will have a tough time selling "intercepting encrypted satellite signals without proper authorization or payment" when they themselves activated it and recieved payment. and if they did not receive payment, why did they leave it activated? :confused:

[missileman]

"DirecTV allege the defendants......intercepting encrypted satellite signals without proper authorization or payment. "


Maybe i'm missing something here, but since their access cards are secure (as per D* states themselves), the only way to get a card turned on is for D* to activate it...correct? By D* activating it, they are then authorizing that card to receive satellite signals...correct? If they activated it and have not received payment then they would have deactivated the card...correct?

I think they will have a tough time selling "intercepting encrypted satellite signals without proper authorization or payment" when they themselves activated it and recieved payment. and if they did not receive payment, why did they leave it activated? :confused:

If I receive service from D* for an "additional" receiver for $4.95 per month, then install that receiver in your home while charging you $25.00, then that is intercepting signals without proper authorization or payment.

[Richard King]

I suspect that Missileman hit the nail on the head as to what the thieves are currently doing.

[cboylan3]

At a minimum they have violated the customer agreement, but I still dont see how they violated "Federal Wiretap laws".

It seems you are putting the focus on "proper". If thats the case, then anyone who doesn't have a phone line connected to a second receiver can be sued using "Federal Wiretap laws " :confused:

[Spruceman]

What do they mean by a "false subscription account?" If you create any kind of an account, I would assume you are paying for the service. Or are they using some kind of legaleze to mean that Bubba is activating 6 receivers on one account and sharing the account ("stacking") with 5 friends / relatives scattered across the hinterland? .

[n8dagr8]

What do they mean by a "false subscription account?" If you create any kind of an account, I would assume you are paying for the service. Or are they using some kind of legaleze to mean that Bubba is activating 6 receivers on one account and sharing the account ("stacking") with 5 friends / relatives scattered across the hinterland? .

I believe that is what they are talking about.

[cboylan3]

another question........

one case has 59 additional receivers and the other has 44 additional receivers :eek2:

I dont know of any house that has that many TOTAL rooms!

when did D* realize what was going on? 15 receivers added? 25 receivers added? and how long did they let it go on before doing something about it?

If they had a problem with the number of additional receivers (heck, I would start double checking and verifying account with more than 5 receivers) then they should have refused to authorize the receivers in the first place. It sounds strange to me that they would go ahead and authorize the many receivers and THEN go back and sue.

[missileman]

another question........

one case has 59 additional receivers and the other has 44 additional receivers :eek2:

I dont know of any house that has that many TOTAL rooms!

when did D* realize what was going on? 15 receivers added? 25 receivers added? and how long did they let it go on before doing something about it?

If they had a problem with the number of additional receivers (heck, I would start double checking and verifying account with more than 5 receivers) then they should have refused to authorize the receivers in the first place. It sounds strange to me that they would go ahead and authorize the many receivers and THEN go back and sue.

Obvioulsly, the CRS software doesn't show total activated receivers. I guess adding one at a time didn't raise a flag. Maybe they caught it during an audit.

My question is: Just how long did these customers think they could get away with this? Adding 59 additional receivers to one account is not exactly smart.

[cboylan3]

Adding 59 additional receivers to one account is not exactly smart.


no it's not.


whats equally not smart is the company not realizing how many active receivers they turned on for that account.


Obvioulsly, the CRS software doesn't show total activated receivers.


The CSRs are able to look at your account and see how many receivers you have on your account. Any time i've called in the past, the CSR knew how many receivers I had.

So the info was infront of D*'s face and they waited a year to do anything about it. how does that saying go? "Fool me once, shame on you..fool me 44 times shame on me"?

[Mark Holtz]

Maybe somebody can point me to a switch that can handle 44 receivers. :D

According to the original press release (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050628/285890.html?.v=1), "many people are turning to fraud to gain unauthorized access to our programming". It sounds like the named defendents (Michael Grant, Rylon Grant and Jean Grant) were acting as address brokers in order to sell subscriptions to customers in Canada and Mexico.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't DirecTV use the New York stations as the Distant Locals-East and Los Angeles as Distant Locals-West. That means that those eight stations would be on a national beam instead of a local beam.

All speculation of course.

[jpurkey]

Does it say somewhere that all 44 and 59 were on the same account? I'm thinking maybe it was several accounts with 6-8 receivers each or something.

[cboylan3]

Does it say somewhere that all 44 and 59 were on the same account? I'm thinking maybe it was several accounts with 6-8 receivers each or something.

JP - good point. I haven't been able to see the complaint on this case, however, I located the complaint from a similar complaint from 2004 (Utah couple with 32 additional receivers). In that case the dft. had setup multiple accounts.

On one account they had 15 receivers added over 2 yrs (9 were set up over 1 month span)..........hmmmmmmm red flag?

On another account, after setting it up with one receiver, a month later added 9 receivers on the SAME DAY...............hmmmmm red flag?

[jpurkey]

Nine is plausible and someone could probably convince a CSR that it is legit. But I would think at some point that having all the mirrored receivers connected to a phone line should be mandatory.

[mrhdtv]

jpurkey,

Not everyone has a land line anymore, I have a buddy that owns a company and the guy has a bunch of receivers, 2 4x8 switches I believe. He called me to invite me over to see his new fathers day gift and his new garage. His G/F got him a 26"LCD for his garage and an H10 receiver to boot! He also paid thousands to have granite floor in his garage! That guy has receivers in about every room in his house, including bathrooms! They use cell phones exclusively.

Not to sound snobbish but a bunch of receivers in a 1500sf house or an apartment would definately be suspicious, but 8 or more in 4000sq ft (or more) homes isn't out of the ordinary, we've got 7 (4HD 3 SD) but my (circa 1990) 13" TV in the garage is fed wirelessly from the bedroom.

I also know several guys that have 3-4 receivers in their media rooms for sporting events and parties. Add boxes to living room, master B/R, and kids bedrooms and 8-10 boxes suddenly doesn't seem like too many. On the other hand I know a guy who built a multi-million dollar house on 40 acres and asked me about satellite TV. When I told him extra boxes were $50 + 4.95/mo with DirecTV or he could lease them from Dish for about the same additional cost he freaked!! People are weird.

As an off-topic question how does DTV handle the mobile rigs I've at van conversion companies? Does DirecTV charge full price (monthly)for a unit installed in someone's car/van/RV or just for an additional receiver?