Stanford Center for Internet and Society

A United States district court has granted Freetech, Inc.’s ("Freetech") motion for a protective order against 17 subpoenas served on Freetech’s distributors by satellite television broadcaster Echostar Satellite LLC ("Echostar"). The subpoenas sought the identity and contact information of each of Freetech’s customers that purchased a Free-to-Air receiver which was capable of being modified to decrypt Echostar’s satellite signals without its authorization. Echostar argued that such contact information would assist it in proving, in the main proceedings, that Freetech violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Communications Act. The court held that the information sought would not help Echostar prove its claims, and that the burden and intrusiveness to Freetech’s customers was too high to justify disclosure, especially in light of alternative methods of sourcing more relevant information.

DirecTV, a satellite programming provider, sued two end-users of pirating technology, arguing that by removing and inserting previously disabled access cards that had been restored by an unlooper into DirecTV’s receivers, the users illegally assembled piracy devices in violation of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 (“FCA”), 47 U.S.C. § 605(e)(4). The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed two district courts’ decisions denying default judgments under the FCA because the complaints failed to state violations of the FCA. The court rejected DirecTV’s argument that their access cards were devices “primarily of assistance in the unauthorized decryption of satellite cable programming.” The Court held that Congress intended section 605(e)(4) to apply to those making piracy devices for commercial purposes, which is punishable by a penalty of up to $100,000, rather than to end-users employing piracy devices for individual personal use, an act punishable by a maximum penalty of $10,000.

, DirecTV Inc. v. Huynh, No. 05-16361 (9th Cir. Sept. 11, 2007)