Suffice to say, there is an ongoing effort by the media companies to establish a material loss when intellectual "property" is stolen. Thankfully, it's been slow going for them since there is no physical loss. BobX grabbing the "free" cable signal floating about in his house does not diminish the value of the signal to the cable company. All they can do is list their theoretical losses, which assumes that every person receiving cable without paying would have paid if caught. Or that every person who downloaded a song would have bought the $15.99 CD if the internet didn't exist. Even now, the RIAA sues people for copyright infringement, not property theft.
Or, to put it another way. The car analogy is flawed because you presumably have a limited number of automobiles. If I take yours, you now have less. If BobX utilizes the cable company's open signal, do they have less?
By the way, I pay for my cable. The ethical discussion is separate from the legal discussion.
And this has not been uninteresting, although it is somewhat off-topic now.
-Shane
----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Francis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Jack Trout" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users@mythtv.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 8:39 AM
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Cable Modem == Free Basic Cable.
On Wed, 2005-02-09 at 01:44, Jack Trout wrote:>
> Sure it is. If I leave my car in your driveway with the keys in the
> ignition and the car running and you decide to take it for a
> "test-drive" can I report my car stolen?
>
> Just because they didn't put the filter on doesn't give someone the
> justification to be able to help themselves to whatever they want. > They
> still own the content.
IF you left your car on my property with the keys in it etc, I would still have to perform the action of entering your car and driving away with it. but I would be within my legal right to have it towed away...
What I am saying is you have content being delievered to your lines you cannot control without performing something illegal IE climbing the pole and hooking up a filter that is the Cable Companies domain.
If your television is passively on the wiring in your house and the wiring is recieving cable its a grey area, because you are not paying for that specifically, but you actions did not cause the cable to be there, if everyone is self reporting you could call the cable company and complain about why are these annoying channels interfering with your normal Snow Pattern you normally get, But if you find 20$ in your mail box, do you call the post office pissed off because you got money?
Its the Cable companies job to install and block thier services correctly, if they dont the consumer cant be blamed, if the consumer has made no action to obtain these services, and has not requested these services.
But saying we are advocating illegal actions no one has said go to the pole and rip the filters off, no one has said run a line from your neighbors house, no one has suggested running a cablebox not provided by the cable company, so I dont see how anyone is advocating illegal activity
I understand your point, but the issue is you make the conscious decision to take the signal that doesn't belong to you and that you don't have rights to because you haven't paid for them.
According to the law there are three types of lost property:
Mislaid - I placed something somewhere and I forgot that I put it there. Whoever finds it at this point becomes the legal caretaker of the product until I come and claim it. They have no ownership rights/title to it and are responsible for the upkeep of it.
Lost - I had an item but now I cannot find it and don't know where it is. The finder of it has legal title of it against the world to everyone except the true owner.
Abandoned - I had an item but now I decided I don't want it so I just discarded it. The finder of the item has legal title of it against the world and the true owner.
In this case the cable company's ownership is definitely mislaid. Because of this you have no ownership rights or title to it and in fact you are responsible for making sure that it is kept in good shape and not used an any way contrary to how the owner would want. According to the law you have the responsibility of telling the cable company about the service being given to you. Once you have done this you are now absolved from any legal wrongdoings. By not doing so you remain liable.
Scott
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