subject: Piracy Claim Against Sonicview Usa Could Not Be Proven [print this page] Dish Network LLC has to wait further to put an end to the alleged piracy by the Sonicview USA. Earlier, they have alleged to the federal court that Sonicview is pirating their satellite programming and appealed the court to order a TRO or Temporary Restraining Order. However, the court has expressed that order the TRO without notifying the defendants would be too harsh an order.
However, the judge has not completely routed out the allegations. According to reports, the US District Court for the Southern District of California judge M. James Lorenz had said on Thursday that the plaintiffs have evidently established the possibility of violation of the Dish Network's copyright. Still, he did not issue TRO as that would practically cease Sonicview's business.
In fact, when the plaintiffs - EchoStar Technologies LLC, Dish Network and NagraStar filed a lawsuit on 17th July seeking the TRO of Sonicview, they did not notify the defendant. According to their claims, Sonicview sells technology and devices that illegally decrypts the programming of the Dish Network. Though the judge did not issue the TRO, he accepted the merit of their allegation under the Communications Act, Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.
While giving the verdict, Judge Lorenz said that the plaintiffs are essentially looking to put an end to defendant's business asking to stop distributing any device of them including those that do not come under suspicion. However, the plaintiffs claimed that if the TRO is given, Sonicview can destroy all the evidences, but they eventually failed to substantiate their points. In fact, the judge said that any such injunction is 'ever rarely justified'.
However, the Dish Network claimed that the TRO was recommended for the balance of hardship. For, if the order were issued, the defendants would have to then comply with the federal as well as the California copyright law.
According to the allegations of the plaintiffs, Sonicview sells the pirating technology through one storefront. Also, there are plenty of websites through which one can purchase them. In fact, Dish Network has claimed to conduct a secrete investigation that confirmed that the Sonicview has evolved a technology to hack the latest system of them. The system provides satellite TV programming to more than 13 million subscribers.
However, the experts have seen something fishy in the entire thing. They believe that the FTA or the free to air technology has been there for years. It has been used popularly since the time when the Dish Network was not even in the scene. So, they find no possibility of forcing it out just because Echostar does not like it. Also, they believe that the Coolsat boxes can not read signal out of the box. That means, the firmware has to be flashed with illegal code. Now, the irony here is that such codes are widely available in the internet.
So, there is no practical way to find out whether the buyers are using it for piracy or just to pick up the hundreds of channels that broadcast free programming.
