Clampdown on TV 'Dodgy Boxes'

out of curiosity, what legislation covers theft of service?

I pay yearly, I'm not freeloading scum. Anyone paying full whack for sky/tnt etc needs their head examined tbh.

I spent 15 years paying Sky for the privilege of letting them choose what matches I got to watch. That was enough for me. My last monthly bill with them was €120 iirc for tv with sports and their internet. My current option is €90 for the year and I can watch whatever matches I want during the season.

…theyve managed to stifle themselves to some degree with their own rules in regards viewing rights, illegal providers dont have to deal with any of that, if they could manage to untangle those rights, and provide much cheaper packages, that would rival those illegal options, theyd be laughing, may not happen though, so on we go….

Usernames have IPs attached to them otherwise how are they tracking if people are using more than one connection while only paying for one.

IPs are linked to ISPs who track who has an IP at any one time.

Now before the VPN people jump in saying I'm untraceable. Don't believe the no logs ****. VPNs leaks occur.

Its unlikely that the gardai will go to the effort but don't be under the impression it can't be done.

Let Sky paddle their own canoe. Cnuts.

But why are they cnuts as you call them?.

Is it because they charge what you believe to be too expensive a price for their service?

If that's the case do you form this opinion with an expert knowledge of the broadcasting industry, the costs of rights, the cost of infrastructure, the cost of labour etc etc and believe they are gouging?

Or do you form this opinion from a point of total ignorance because you have some magic figure in your head about how much their service should cost.

I'd say it's the latter.

That doesn't answer the question I asked

Its not sky it's the iptv operator.

anyone that thinks that the guards/sky/government will go after end users is clearly a bit simple.. they have only ever targeted the resellers. Mine is out of the jurisdiction as are the servers. It’s a game of whack-a-mole that the providers keep winning. They would be prosecuting themselves as a large proportion of the serving guards I know are all users of IPTV lol

Prosecuting individual users is a scare tactic, sure they might catch the odd person but personally I wouldn't be bothered. It's the resellers they want.

That makes even less sense. You think the end user is obtaining services from the iptv operator by deception?

relax there Liam Neeson 🤣

As far as I am aware there is no such thing as 'theft of service' in relation to this subject. 'Theft' implies depriving someone of the item that is stolen. No one with a dodgy box steals the service as it remains available to others.
The use of such streams would be under different legislation.

As the dodgy box user pays the provider for the service they receive, there is no theft or fraud between the two parties, which is clearly what this legislation is designed to cover.

7.—(1) A person who dishonestly, with the intention of making a gain for himself or herself or another, or of causing loss to another, by any deception obtains services from another is guilty of an offence.

(my emphasis)

I actually know the guards personally and from talking to them it would appear to be fairly common in the force.

Any Sergeants or Inspectors? This could be the next big scandal up there with the Penalty Points. Very serious stuff when Gardai are paying over money to criminal gangs.

I'll shake hands with you. Unite the freeloading scum clans! Got 500Mb in myself a couple months ago. 4k HDR sports and movies flying now better than ever on my TOX3 box.

Visited my non techy neighbour who needed some help casting to his projector a few weeks back. Low and behold he has the same package as me on firestick! Oh how we laughed! Small world! 🤣

They don't need to prosecute everyone. Who knows they might shutdown a fly by night service who hast taken security precautions and go after them to scare other people off IPTV.

The lack of action by broadcasters is probably an indication that illegal IPTV streaming is not that much of a problem for them.

The last rights deal, even though the EPL made some small changes that could be viewed as a reaction to illegal streaming was not the sale as some thought it might be.

Plus Sky subscription numbers are actually going up in the last few years.

I have a regular Sky subscription and last year I paid E15 a month on Now for Sky Sports during the EPL season.

This year I'm thinking of getting a dodgy box for the sports, but I'll still keep the Sky subscription.

I'll get more sports for cheaper that way.

So if you take me as an example Sky are only losing my E15 a month Now subscription, which they were giving me at a discount anyway.

So by me getting a dodgy box they will lose feck all.

The mass exedous from Sky subscriptions to dodgy boxes is still a long way away.

The problem of moving away from Sky in Ireland is that the alternative (legal) route is relatively messy.

You need a antenna for RITE/Virgin Media, and a satellite for everything else.

You need a box that will take both and then a HDD etc for recording.

Sky has all that in a very functional box and has been offering that service for decades.

People aren't afraid of prosecutions, they are afraid of getting all their TV from a service that could go dark at any moment and that they have zero customer rights if it does.

If every Garda station has a "large proportion" of members paying organised crime gangs for cheap TV, there is every possibility of this thing blowing up on them. Especially as some of them seem to be loudmouths who can't keep their crime spree to themselves. Some falling out between members in a station could prompt an aggrieved party to turn into a revenge seeking "whistle blower". Cue a Maurice McCabe type scandal, and GSOC having a field day. It was fairly low level stuff that eventually led to the resignation of the Minister for Justice and the Garda Commissioner.

"Maurice McCabe was a Garda Sergeant, who came to national attention as a whistleblower on corruption within the Garda Síochána, Ireland's national police force. During the early 2000s, he served as sergeant-in-charge at the Garda station in Bailieborough, County Cavan. McCabe had expressed a number of concerns during his time as station sergeant. Incidents included off-duty Gardaí attempting to deal with a suicide situation, gardaí making use of unmarked Garda vehicles while off duty, and issues regarding the number of hours gardaí were actually working. McCabe lodged multiple complaints about slipping police standards in Bailieborough and the lack of initiative of several gardaí."

Just use a good vpn like surfshark

Most people pay with regular PayPal,Revolut or Debit/Credit cards. These are surely way more straightforward for the law to trace than other methods...if they ever wanted to go down this route but they simply don't have the resources to go after and successfully prosecute individuals. It's not just Garda time that gets tied up, it's everyone in the chain. It is far more beneficial to go after the providers from a rights owners perspective.

There are literally dozens of more important laws in this country that aren't being enforced so I don't see how this one suddenly goes up the priorities list.