In The United States Some Breathing Room Exists
Earlier this year, CA-based DirecTV, Inc. completed the largest swap out of DBS conditional access cards in the history of the satellite TV industry. "Our new P4 and D1 cards, to our knowledge, have not been hacked. Nonetheless, we continue to pursue signal thieves through legal action, both through the civil courts, supporting law enforcement in criminal investigations and raids on suspected distributors and manufacturers of illegal signal theft devices," says Bob Marsocci, vice president of communications at DirecTV.
"Consumers who had been using hacked cards to illegally receive [signals] have found that those hacked cards are useless. Our end user initiative has also had a chilling effect on piracy--consumers realize they are no longer immune from legal action as a result of their illegal activity," adds Marsocci.
Chuck Hewitt, former president of the VA-based Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association (SBCA) and a principal of Atlas Business Development, has monitored satellite signal theft closely for years. He refers to estimates ranging anywhere between 1 million to almost 1.5 million illegal viewers in the United States. In fact, this total may be a bit conservative as some estimates allude to a far greater number.
Years ago, when the C-band TVRO market was the only game in town, the SBCA created the Anti-Piracy Task Force (APTF). According to Hewitt, while this joint industry/government initiative was eventually phased out, it should not be overlooked.
"When piracy was coming to the attention of content providers, the SBCA with programmer leadership joined by most elements of the industry launched the APTF. It was successful in demonstrating to the content providers and others that we were serious about protecting their property, as well as showing that the satellite industry was a legitimate member of the communications industry," says Hewitt. "As we moved from the C-band industry to DBS, APTF became less important. First, both DirecTV and Echostar were controlling their own anti-piracy efforts and secondly, since DBS was about to launch, the pirates started to concentrate on DBS and not on C-band."
The current SBCA president, Richard DalBello, would not comment on what exactly the SBCA is doing or plans to do in this regard, other than to say that in 2005, the SBCA will renew it efforts and strengthen its resources to fight satellite signal theft.
"I was not aware SBCA was going to revisit this issue, but I am certainly in agreement that they do. Piracy is a cancer that negatively impacts all satellite businesses from retailers to the platform providers. While the APTF's previous goals and objectives may not fit today's situation, there is a need for all the industry to combat piracy, and for the SBCA to play an important part in coordinating and leading that effort," says Hewitt.
The Battle Is Far From Over
As we said from the start, we cannot accurately pinpoint the global financial impact of satellite signal theft. Satellite signal theft is rampant, and it will take a lot of energy, money and political know-how to fix the problem.
Whereas signal theft in North America may be feeling the heat due to a concerted campaign to stamp it out--or at least make it so unappealing from the standpoint of cost that it gradually evaporates altogether--the rest of the developing world is just getting its act together. Of course, some readers might challenge this portrayal as overly optimistic.
Satellite signal theft by every means possible continues to erode the revenues of the satellite sector as a whole. Will new methods of preventing theft emerge? Perhaps, but even if this happens, this battle is far from over.
Peter J. Brown is Via Satellite's Senior Multimedia & Homeland Security Editor. He also volunteers as a satellite technology and communications advisor to the Maine Emergency Management Agency.
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