Free sky

pm.

Hi

I know that's these box's or this means of getting sky is illegal, but how is it that sky can not block the signals to these devices? They must be loosing serious money with these devices out there.

Johnboy1951

pm. wrote: »

Hi

I know that's these box's or this means of getting sky is illegal, but how is it that sky can not block the signals to these devices? They must be loosing serious money with these devices out there.

Where the illegal streams are carried on the internet, they do have them taken down as soon as they are aware of them.

The illegal 'dodgy' boxes use Sky's own satellite transmission so that cannot be blocked.

galtee boy

pm. wrote: »

Hi

I know that's these box's or this means of getting sky is illegal, but how is it that sky can not block the signals to these devices? They must be loosing serious money with these devices out there.

They have already blocked the HD variants on these " "Free Sky" boxes, and they could do the same with the SD signal, but it would mean killing off all the old legitimate SD Sky boxes out there as well, so firstly all those legal SD only boxes would have to be upgraded to HD boxes by Sky and seeing as there apparently hundreds of thousands of SD boxes still legally in use between Ireland and the U.K., it will cost Sky a lot of money, but they may do it eventually.

pm.

They should look at it as an investment, they must be loosing a fortune..

Vic_08

pm. wrote: »

They should look at it as an investment, they must be loosing a fortune..

That's where reality and PR part company. The only revenue loss from someone pirating content for their own use is the potential revenue that they might spend on legitimate content. If they are the sort that will just move on to the next dodgy source or give up and watch free tv then sky have not actually lost any revenue on them.

Sky or any other content provider will never admit this as it goes against any claim for damges in legal action they may take against pirates but you can be sure their accounting for how much to spend on stamping out piracy does.

No doubt Sky will have a threshold beyond which it will be worthwhile financially to fund replacement boxes to the remaining holdouts or just announce the boxes becoming redundant and take the hit on a small number of subscribers cancelling rather than pay for an upgrade.

BTW, just to make it clear to ICDG, I am in no way endorsing, excusing, legitimising, or promoting piracy.

Samuel T. Cogley

The boxes aren't illegal, watching the streams isn't illegal. The streaming is illegal (probably) but that's a matter for the LEA in the country it's happening in. What gives my a little chuckle is Sky is currently being sued for being a carrier (on the ISP side) of illegal streams and torrents.