[opendtv] Re: EchoStar Pimping Bears "Fruit"
- From: John Willkie <johnwillkie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2006 13:02:49 -0700 (GMT-07:00)
First, this isn't the punishment phase, this is just the injunctive phase (to
keep them from doing further wrong).
The district court judge ruled that EchoStar needed to shut off service to
unlawfully served households. The idiots (it can now be said of the folks at
EchoStar), instead of complying with the injunction granted in 2001, delaying
the clock and collecting additional revenues.
Echostar maintained that they had removed from their lists all viewers that
were unlawfully getting distant signals. (What they did was to remove ONLY
people who had, by Echostar's jaundiced view, a few -- VERY FEW -- people who
Echostar couldn't color as being distant signal subscribers, like Barry Brown.)
During the appeals, they collected revenues on the rest.
On appeal, the circuit court did something very unusual; they overturned what
the judge who actually held the trial concluded (charitably) about the
good-faith of EchoStar. That judge held that EchoStar's principals were
evasive, as were more than a few of their expert witnesses, and called much of
their testimony unbeliveable. The judge could have gone much further, and held
their actions to have been wilful.
The circuit court, without the "benefit" of the personalities involved, found
the actions of Echostar to not only be wilful, with the holding on this point
being the paragraph I posted yesterday. They ruled that, absent a settlement
with the petitioning parties, Echostar's wilful activities could only be
addressed by shutting off service to all distant households.
Why both lawful and unlawfully served households? Because they didn't beleve
that EchoStar honestly tried -- in 1999 -- to clearly use the rules and see who
was lawful and who were not. The included in the "lawful" category the ones
who were lawful and those that they thought it would be too expensive for the
copyright holders and stations to determine were lawful. This is the aspect
that my friend was involved in during 1999, and he told me that EchoStar was
misinterpreting the rules, then having him sign certifications using
misconstrued criteria.
So, the circuit court (appeals court) told EchoStar to turn off all households,
since their previous assertions that they had fairlyseparated the two
categories of users were not to be believed.
The "punishment" to the lawfully-served viewers is rather minor; loss of
distant signals for a few days or weeks until they can -- assuming they can do
so lawfully -- acquire the signals from DirecTV. It will be disruptive, yes,
and it will strain my friends doing the installations. But,the gear is free,
and the rates are comparable.
I suspect that what will happen is that a significant percentage of the
"lawfully served" households will turn out to be not lawfully served.
Here's one aspect that I haven't heard addressed in the legal proceedings, but
that I know of from the install side. When a customer moves, they are supposed
to be re-evaluated as to their access to distant signals. Sometimes they move
in-market, and may not be eligible (Echostar losing revenue); other times they
move in-market and would be eligible if the engineering work is done. Other
times, they move out-of-market and aren't eligible for distant signals absent a
new analysis.
As of the 1999-2000 time frame, the only time that a station became aware that
a household had moved was when the viewer called the station to whine about
something and mentioned that, due to whatever problem, they had moved but had
distant signal access, anyway.
EchoStar would record the customer move for billing and collection purposes,
installing (if necessary) the rx gear at the new location. But, they didn't
notify the station(s). You see, all communications on distant signal access
were to go through the satellite provider.
DirecTV did this, by all reports I have, properly and fairly kept stations
informed, and always did a proper engineering analysis on the new receive
location. Maybe I didn't hear of cases, but I have a few friends in the
home/office/MDU satellite biz.
Indeed, I have a story on point. The VP of Engineering of a station group in
whose office I sat told me of his experience in this area. When DirecTV went
to spot beams, he wanted the ability to view the closest out-of-market station
under him live via satellite. His office was just on the edge of that spot
beam, so he needed to put up a bigger than normal dish.
When he told DirecTV that he wanted access to station K___ in market ____, he
was told he would need a waiver from the broadcaster. He said "no problem, I
grant the waiver", since waiver requests for the group were funneled through
his office for processing. The DirecTV rep told him the process was more
formalized than that, but he got his service when the paperwork was done.
"With Echostar, it would have been much easier", he chuckled.
I should have noted in my previous post that the only two senators who are
asking for a hearing are from Echostar's "home" state of Colorado. One should
assume that they asked all 100 senators to join in on the request. This case
stinks to high heaven, and I'm not talking about Fox, DirecTV or News Corp.
One can even assume that the other affiliates and networks took the money and
ran, knowing that News Corp would do the heavy lifting -- they are, after all
co-plaintiffs.
When are the idiots at EchoStar going to behave like they will have a business
after September 12 and launch their hostile takeover of Tivo? They could do it
by using a bit more than half of their cash in the bank. Cash they
accumulated, in good part, by unfairly failing to pay fees and residuals to the
people that install their dishes in homes, offices and multiple dwelling units.
John Willkie
John Shutt wrote
"Alright, I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not Bob Miller, but there is one thing I
don't understand. The court ordering EchoStar to turn off out-of-market
signals to those who have the service unlawfully is understandable and
reasonable. But why order EchoStar to turn off service to those who are
receiving out-of-market signals lawfully? Punishment to EchoStar? If so, it's
more like punishment to innocent subscribers instead.
John"
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