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From: ron@brl-vgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie )
Newsgroups: net.video
Subject: Re: cable curiosities
Message-ID: <2470@brl-vgr.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 13-Mar-84 18:30:59 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-vgr.2470
Posted: Tue Mar 13 18:30:59 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Mar-84 19:44:34 EST
References: <135@homxa.UUCP>
Organization: Ballistics Research Lab
Lines: 22

Yes this is really illegal.  This is sort of like going out and hooking
up an extension cord on the wrong side of your electric meter.  You might
class this as the same type of thing such as hooking up extra telephones
to your phone line (which was OK'd by the FCC several years back) but
the copyright laws will probably prevent a similar decision.  Essentially,
it's the cable company's wire and you are subject to their terms.  As for
penalties, our local company seems to be taking the extra TV thing lightly
(like pay the money you owe us and forget about it).  What they are really
chasing is everyone who tore apart their converters to rewire them so they
could get SHOWTIME and PLAYBOY without paying for it.  They've since solved
this problem by switching the encoding method so it is not easy to steal
these services.  The other thing they're chasing is those who sell the
company converters and those who are hooking up converters to lines that
aren't getting cable at all (most apartments around here are prewired).
Too many TV's and VTR's are set up these days not to require converters
and you can order them mail order to really make it easy for them to
detect or worry about extra outlets on lines that are already paying
customers.

I have quite different feelings about non-cable pay TV (I'll post in
a future letter).

-Ron