Posted on 10/01/2008 1:34:37 AM PDT by Las Vegas Dave
It has not been a good year in the courts for Echostar / Dish Network. Today thanks for the folks at the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) a court has blocked a request from Echostar to subpoena the records containing the name, address, email address and purchase details of everyone who has ever purchased a Coolsat Brand Free To Air Satellite Receiver.
Last month, EFF filed an amicus brief in Echostar v. Freetech, where Echostar sought the identities of every consumer who purchased a Freetech "CoolSat" free-to-air (FTA) satellite receiver during the past five years. EFF argued that this demand, issued in discovery in a lawsuit between Echostar and Freetech, represented an unwarranted intrusion into the privacy of individual consumers. Today, the court agreed, issuing an order blocking Echostar's subpoenas.
The ruling potentially sets an important precedent, as it represents the first time a federal court has explicitly rejected a third-party subpoena on the basis of the privacy interests of nonparty consumers.
Echostar is the company behind the DISH satellite TV service. Freetech makes receivers for unencrypted, free-to-air satellite transmissions (there are many free, unencrypted satellite channels). In December 2007, Echostar sued Freetech, alleging that the Freetech CoolSat receiver was specifically designed for after-market modification to enable unauthorized reception of DISH programming. According to Echostar, Freetech "sold thousands of these FTA Receivers to consumer pirates for the sole purpose of circumventing [Echostar]'s Security System."
In the course of discovery, Echostar sent subpoenas to the distributors of CoolSat receivers, demanding that they hand over their customer lists, including the name, address, email address, and purchase details for every person to have purchased a CoolSat receiver over the past 5 years.
As EFF explained in its amicus brief, these subpoenas represent a serious intrusion into the privacy of legitimate purchasers of these FTA receivers. Not only would it be an intrusion to be contacted by Echostar about a device you purchased months or years ago, but other satellite TV companies have used customer lists to launch mass litigation campaigns against consumers. After DirecTV obtained similar customer lists in litigation in 2001, it sent more than 170,000 letters to individuals demanding "settlements" of $3,500.
In refusing to allow Echostar to obtain the CoolSat customer lists, the court specifically weighed Echostar's need for the information against the privacy interests of the customers whose information would be disclosed. The court expressed concern that "both those who purchase the FTA receivers for proper and improper purposes will be swept up in the process." The court went on to conclude that "the requests for customer lists, therefore, could lead to the perceived harassment of legitimate users and a concomitant chilling effect on the purchase and lawful use of Freetech's FTA receivers."
Kudos to the court for keeping the privacy interests of nonparties in mind as commercial litigants dispatch third-party subpoenas that would otherwise carelessly intrude into the lives of individual consumers.
Thanks Las Vegas Dave.
So when Obama takes over the airwaves, I could still what’s left of uncensored news from the CoolStat reciever without being reported?
All bets are off when nobama and his thugs get into office......
bfl
.......there are many free, unencrypted satellite channels.....
What channels are these?
I could steal what’s left of uncensored news from the CoolStat reciever without being reported?????
All bets are off when nobama and his thugs get into office...... /////////////
Whoa!!!! you altered what I said, totally.
I meant to type I could STILL SEE what’s left, not STEAL what’s left
.......funny typo, thou.
I have a Panasonic 50 inch Plasma 720p HDTV and a VIZIO 32 inch LCD both with reception via cable. There is one channel (local station on cable) where the broadcast image is larger than the viewing area on both TVs. It is very obvious when text is cut off. Fortunatly it is a channel that I rarely watch but it does carry College and Pro football games and the statistics that are displayed across the top are always cut off on both the left and right sides.
Just wondering why?
Either the cable box or the TV or both will have a setting that allows you to adjust the picture size. It sounds like your picture is set to “stretch” or something similar. Adjusting this setting should resolve it.
There is no cable box. Would not adjusting this “stretch” that only occurs on “one” channel affect all the other channels? Also because it happens on both TVs I would think it has someting to do with how this one channel is broadcast. It is a local station.
> What channels are these?<
There are perhaps a thousand of them. But few people will be interested since most are in foreign languages. I get several hundred of these signals myself.
For listings, see:
It probably will affect all channels - some channels are broadcast in different formats than others. On my TV remote, there is one button to push to adjust the size of the picture. If I hit a channel that doesn’t look quite right, I just press that button a couple of times until it does.
Since its only that channel, my guess is that the station is probably taking a SD picture and doing their own stretching when they up-convert to HD. The only way to correct this is to complain to the folks running the station.
Echostar sought the identities of every consumer who purchased a Freetech "CoolSat" free-to-air (FTA) satellite receiver during the past five years... Freetech makes receivers for unencrypted, free-to-air satellite transmissions (there are many free, unencrypted satellite channels). In December 2007, Echostar sued Freetech, alleging that the Freetech CoolSat receiver was specifically designed for after-market modification to enable unauthorized reception of DISH programming. According to Echostar, Freetech "sold thousands of these FTA Receivers to consumer pirates for the sole purpose of circumventing [Echostar]'s Security System." ...After DirecTV obtained similar customer lists in litigation in 2001, it sent more than 170,000 letters to individuals demanding "settlements" of $3,500... The court went on to conclude that "the requests for customer lists, therefore, could lead to the perceived harassment of legitimate users and a concomitant chilling effect on the purchase and lawful use of Freetech's FTA receivers."Thanks Las Vegas Dave.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.