DISH Network Going After Satellite TV Pirates
Satellite TV piracy has been going on since HBO first scrambled their C-band broadcast back in the early 1980’s. More recently the hot topic is the use of FTA satellite equipment, designed to receive free, unscrambled broadcasts, modified to receive DISH Network paid programming. This new age of DBS satellite piracy has spurred lawsuits, criminal action, and a technology war to create the best encryption and lock out the hackers. But is satellite piracy as widespread and costly as DISH Network CEO Charlie Ergen would like for the legal system to believe?
Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Fox News Channel and DirecTV satellite-programming provider, purchased DirectTV in April 2004. At the time of his purchase, DirecTV was the target of pirate satellite hackers. Under Murdoch the DirecTV satellite system was upgraded using new more sophisticated encryption, defeating further satellite hacking to this day. The upgrade required a significant investment in the manufacture and distribution of new encryption cards that had to be sent to all subscribers. It wasn’t cheap for the company to put out all that new upgraded equipment.
After satellite hackers were locked out of DirecTV, they switched their focus to the DISH Network satellite TV service. This is because the encryption used by DISH network is more vulnerable than the upgraded DirecTV encryption.
Dish Network uses Digital Broadcast Video (DVB) technology as opposed to North America’s preferred Videocipher first for C-band. DVB is dominant in Europe and other countries, and is associated with FTA, or Free to Air satellite broadcasts. In Europe there are an estimated 30 million to 40 million unscrambled subscribers that use FTA satellite equipment to watch free television from their homes.
FTA satellite channels are also available in North America, but are mostly made up of free ethnic and religious programs, which are not as popular with general audiences. The availability of FTA satellite receivers on the North American market has spawned a new hobby for satellite electronic enthusiasts known within their group as Satellite Testers.
FTA satellite testers in North America are referred to by the corporate world as satellite pirates, because some have devised a way to reprogram FTA satellite receivers allowing them to be used to receive DISH Network subscription broadcasts. FTA satellite receiver owners in North America complained that there wasn’t any quality programming to view for free, so they sought ways to view scrambled programming.
Since 2004, there has been a large expansion in the number of FTA satellite testers that target DISH Network DVB broadcasts. They are using the modified FTA receivers to receive free DISH Network programming. Furthermore, the modified boxes are also being used to receive Canadian Bell ExpressVU programming. Both DISH Network and Bell ExpressVU are EchoStar companies with over 15 million subscribers combined.
There are accusations that the manufacturers of FTA satellite receivers are responsible for releasing software patches allowing home users to modify their FTA receiver to watch free programming from the EchoStar DBS companies. There are also accusations that EchoStar competitor, DirecTV, is responsible for helping to support the piracy of their competitor, DISH Network.
One proposed solution to the piracy problem is to encourage the development of more legitimate FTA programming in North America, like Europeans benefit from. In North America there are several land based broadcast stations that are advertisement funded. There’s no reason that the major networks couldn’t offer FTA broadcasts in North America using the same advertisement funded model.
The recognized level of greed and unfair price models used by DISH Network and DirecTV, the two major small dish providers, prevents many ordinary people from being sympathetic to their dilemma. As long as they continue to price gouge consumers, they will likely remain the targets of satellite television piracy.
In North America the companies PanSat, CoolSat, Fortec, ViewSat, DreamBox, Ariza, DigiWave, and Metabox account for about 75% of the FTA equipment market according to one source. Some of those companies have been the targets of lawsuits by EchoStar over their equipment’s use in satellite television piracy.
Civil litigation over DBS satellite piracy charges that those companies are actively providing support in the form of software and codes to defeat the ECM (Electronic Counter Measure) or means of scrambling satellite broadcasts. EchoStar DBS broadcasts are constantly being revised with new ECM attempts to thwart satellite piracy, and in response the hackers release new codes or software to decrypt the DBS broadcasts.
The ECM decoding by the hackers seems to be taking place outside the USA and in the homes of volunteers. These hackers may be anarchists that seek to make a political statement by providing the resources that allow satellite piracy. EchoStar has so far failed to demonstrate a direct link between FTA equipment providers and the hackers that are defeating ECM encryption. It is difficult to obtain exact information on the source of the codes and software used to defeat satellite broadcast ECM, as theirs is a very closed and secretive community.
EchoStar companies DISH Network and Bell ExpressVu in Canada claim to be losing significant revenue due to satellite piracy. However, some experts say they greatly exaggerate their loses in order to push for stiffer piracy penalties and tougher government regulation. Since DISH Network and Bell ExpressVU strategically change the ECM and do so frequently, they are said to be effectively discouraging widespread satellite piracy. Even the best-connected satellite pirate suffers frequent outages and usually during major televised events such as popular sporting events. This keeps the average subscriber hooked on paying for service to ensure uninterrupted programming.
In the end, even if piracy tools for the major satellite television companies are readily available, the unreliability of a pirated satellite system will keep most families hooked as paid subscribers. Therefore, only those more interested in tinkering with the technology will likely continue to “test” and spend their time trying to beat the system. The average joe will just keep paying to watch TV and make sure it simply “just works.”
trc author: James E. Claus