A Florida Federal Court walloped a DISH Network pirate with a $51 million judgment after he was found to be posting software on the internet that allowed people with Free-to-air (FTA) satellite systems to receive programming from DISH Network without paying for it.
Satellite companies like DISH go to great lengths to protect their signals with various types of encryption, but when someone figures out how to crack the code and receive programming for free, they sometimes share it with others who also end up risking prosecution if they are caught pirating a subscription channel.
The court held that the posting of pirating software code is a violation of the Federal Communications Act, and that statutory damages should be arrived at based on how many persons downloaded the pirating software. Considering the $51 million number, one heck of a lot of people must have downloaded that code!
These matters are taken very seriously and as one pirate who was foolish enough to advertise his illegal wares found out, $51 million is a pretty big number. Can’t imagine how the average Joe could pay that, but I sure wouldn’t want to have to figure out how!
