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If you sell the digibox with the intention that someone will use it to obtain services without paying for them, you commit a criminal offence (in fact, you commit several, including possible conspiracy offences).
Very difficult to prove intent.

If you buy the digibox knowing that it is capable of receiving paid for channels for free then you potentially commit a criminal offence - even if you don'r watch the improperly obtained channels.
A knife is capable of stabbing somebody, no offence is committed if you don't.

You are entitled to make copies of music for personal use (the 'fair use' clause in international copyright law). The case law has made that clear and the Recording Industry Association of America (the most litigious of the anti-pirating organisations ahs made it clear as well:
Did you read the article?

I suggest you stop trying to conflate very separate issues in order to excuse criminal behaviour.

I assume you pick and choose the laws you wish to follow? And it's acceptable for others to break laws in which you approve of?

I look forward to seeing your advice to not replace pedals, or remove bells, from bicycles. Or chastise those who recommend clipless, as excusing criminal behaviour.
 
What are you belthering about? Riding clipless is not criminal behaviour.
It is on a road, if the pedals do NOT have pedal reflectors fitted.

It contravenes the Construction and Use Act

Your increasingly silly attempts to conflate issues to excuse criminal behaviour are rather pathetic...
No, you seem to like to be the high and mighty, no crime must ever be committed. Yet seem to ignore the laws that you likely do not follow.
 
What are you belthering about? Riding clipless is not criminal behaviour.

Road Vehicle Lighting Regulations, not C&U

At night your cycle MUST have white front and red rear lights lit. It MUST also be fitted with a red rear reflector (and amber pedal reflectors, if manufactured after 1/10/85). White front reflectors and spoke reflectors will also help you to be seen. Flashing lights are permitted but it is recommended that cyclists who are riding in areas without street lighting use a steady front lamp.
Law RVLR regs 13, 18 & 24
 
I beg your pardon? You're the one trying to excuse criminal behaviour.
Not really, you are reading what you want to read into my posts.

OP asked about being prosecuted, I merely answered his question that it is highly unlikely that he would be prosecuted. It is not condoning or excusing criminal behaviour.

If I really condoned it, I wouldn't bother paying for Sky (which I do), or paying for music, or software. Which I also do.

There's a difference between condoning, and excusing criminal behaviour, and being honest with the chances of being prosecuted, and the seriousness of the offences.

If the police, don't have the time, as they claim to attend all burglaries. Then I would be pretty annoyed if they spent that time prosecuting an 18 year old kid for watching Sky.
 

SpokeyDokey

68, & my GP says I will officially be old at 70!
Moderator
I'm wondering if SC&P, through some virtual iteration of osmosis, has materialised in 'Chat'.
 

gavintc

Guru
Location
Southsea
This is not copyright infringement - it is fraud. Plain and simple.

And copyright infringement is not some 'victimless' crime either. Stop making excuses and being an apologist for criminal behaviour.
+1 some people just don't get the difference between right and wrong.
 
OP
OP
Milzy

Milzy

Guru
Um, how do you pay the on going money? Do you really want to give your credit card details to criminals?
It's through paypal so they can't take any more than you give.
I don't think it's as easy to catch up with hooky Sky setups as it is VM. Sky just picks up a signal broadcast via a dish, so unless the box is sending anything back out they'd have to do an inspection of the property. That said Sky change their encryption keys periodically, so the box would have to be reflashed with the latest keys to pick up the entitlement. Some devices get around this by card sharing, that is to say the Sky cards are plugged into a device that shares the codes out over the Internet. Again these can't be tracked (I assume) as that would need some kind of triangulation to see who is using the cards (i.e two decryptions from different locations).

VM on the other hand is plugged into a network, so I imagine all VM would have to do is scan for MAC addresses on TiVO boxes that it's not got on it's billing system and then they can trace it down to a distribution node (green box in the street). From there I imagine it would be a process of elimination to see who's paying their bill and who isn't against what property has had a VM install and what property has recently cancelled or had an install in the past (i.e has all the cabling in place).

Logistics aside, it's shady as fck and only a matter of time before each company's revenue protection team catch up with the missing hardware or unusual activity on their networks.

I'm publicly condemning this whole thing but I'm more interested in how many people actually know about it. I don't think sky or virgin would like this putting in the newspapers as it could lead to a million or so extra people doing it.
 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ked-decoder-boxes-brother-s-eBay-account.html

12 month suspended sentence. Not a great deal for effectively 236k theft, doesn't sat what the compensation figure was.

Lees admitted he had breached the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
usual nonsense with the value. Assumes that everyone who bought the sky boxes would have bought sky tv otherwise. That is clearly not true. Sky absolutely will have lost a lot of sales, but not that many.
 

Cuchilo

Prize winning member X2
Location
London
It's entirely different to buying a stolen bike. There's no deprivation caused by piracy. It is like making a copy/knock-off version of your bike, and selling them.

For what it is worth, I had my own business (Photography), and was constantly subjected to having work illegally used and copied. I can also tell you what the polices opinion on this being "fraud" is. The discussion usually goes, "thanks for telling us, but it's a civil matter." Which is why you see so many piracy cases brought to courts by companies, rather than by the CPS.

It is not in the public interest, or worth the Polices time, to investigate and prosecute these offences on small levels. The guy making £30k+ per year selling them, may be a worthy target, the guy buying it is worthless to them.

Grouping "piracy" into "criminal activity", is similar to saying condoning changing to clipless pedals, on a road bike (with no pedal reflectors (contravening construction and use act)) is criminal.

A lot of things are copyright infringement, in fact, I bet most people on here are committing copyright infringement while saying they don't.

  • Buying a CD and copying it into your iTunes
  • Making a back up of your OWN PC that has an iTunes library on it
  • Making a copy of music on your iPod via iTunes
All of these are illegal to do, yet I'm sure if you own an iPod, you put music on it from iTunes. Or have backed up a music collection in the past?


Edit:
I am in no way condoning piracy, but piracy, and copyright infringement issues are not black & white, or straight forward.
The police are not interested in the person selling the stuff either it would seem .
I bought a carbon saddle on ebay a while back and when it arrived I thought it was fake so I sent a few pictures to Selle . They confirmed it was a fake . I sent this email to the fraud protection department with the return address of the seller and also informed them I had witnessed them sell another x amount of the same saddle on ebay as well as high end handle bars although I had no proof of them being fake .
The reply I got was they where dropping the case because there was a lack of evidence :huh:
RRP of the fraud was @ £20k from memory .
 
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