Echostar Trying To Get Info On Innocent Customers Of Satellite TV Receivers

from the this-again? dept

You may recall a few years back, prior to the RIAA embracing the concept of "pre-litigation letters," that DirecTV was a huge proponent of using them. The company had sued some companies that sold smart card readers -- which could be used for a variety of purposes, only one of which was potentially unauthorized access of satellite TV signals. However, DirecTV was still given access to those company's full customer lists, and proceeded to send most of them one of those pre-litigation letters, demanding $3,500 or saying that a lawsuit would be filed. Of course, plenty of buyers had perfectly legitimate reasons for purchasing a smart card reader that had nothing at all to do with pirating satellite TV. But, no matter, pay up or go to court. And, in fact, many people just paid up.

Eventually, a court finally told DirecTV to knock it off.

However, it appears that DirecTV's main competitors, Echostar never got the message. The EFF is pointing out that Echostar is trying to gain access to the customer lists of a bunch of sellers of a satellite receiver even if there's no evidence that the individual buyers used the satellite receivers to pirate Echostar's DISH Network satellite TV service.

Filed Under: customers, piracy, privacy, satellite receivers, satellite tv
Companies: directv, echostar