“Avast, Harrr!”— Cable Pirates

Watching “free” cable is stealing.

Even if “...the violator was not aware and had no reason to believe that his acts constituted a violation...”

The United States Congress apparently considers this a serious crime: The district court or any other court with jurisdiction can award damages to the cable company of $100 to $10,000... although the neighbor who took your $20 to hook up your cable for you... the fine for him is up to $50,000... unless he’s done it more than once, which would make it $100,000. Oh, and up to six months in jail.

It’s serious business, but I know my predecessor left a lot of things undone... so I’m not accusing anyone of theft.

To those who have already alerted me to these problems at their houses, I sincerely thank you. To the others, I realize...

Most likely:

• The cable was working when you moved in.


• You stopped paying because you were dissatisfied with the quality of service and my predecessor never cut you off.


• You signed up for one service, but you got more than that service.

If you are getting service that you are not supposed to be getting, please let me know so that I can either disconnect the unauthorized services or sign you up as a customer.

The current policy of Blue Sky Cable is that when you notify me that a condition of unauthorized signal or service delivery exists, then your notification relieves you of any past liability related to paying for the unauthorized service, as long as you either —

• Agree to begin paying for the services you wish to keep, going forward; or,


• Immediately stop using the service and permit me or my contractor with access to your premises during reasonable hours and with reasonable notice to properly disconnect or filter the unauthorized service.

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47 USC § 553. Unauthorized Reception of Cable Service

1. Unauthorized interception or receipt or assistance in intercepting or receiving service; “assist in intercepting or receiving” defined
   
   
   1. No person shall intercept or receive or assist in intercepting or receiving any communications service offered over a cable system, unless specifically authorized to do so by a cable operator or as may otherwise be specifically authorized by law.
      
   
   
   2. For the purpose of this section, the term “assist in intercepting or receiving” shall include the manufacture or distribution of equipment intended by the manufacturer or distributor (as the case may be) for unauthorized reception of any communications service offered over a cable system in violation of subparagraph (1).


2. Penalties for willful violation
   
   
   
   1. Any person who willfully violates subsection (a)(1) of this section shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned for not more than 6 months, or both.
      
   
   
   2. Any person who violates subsection (a)(1) of this section willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain shall be fined not more than $50,000 or imprisoned for not more than 2 years, or both, for the first such offense and shall be fined not more than $100,000 or imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both, for any subsequent offense.
      
   
   
   3. For purposes of all penalties and remedies established for violations of subsection (a)(1) of this section, the prohibited activity established herein as it applies to each such device shall be deemed a separate violation.
   
   
3. Civil action in district court; injunctions; damages; attorney’s fees and costs; regulation by States or franchising authorities
   
   
   1. Any person aggrieved by any violation of subsection (a)(1) of this section may bring a civil action in a United States district court or in any other court of competent jurisdiction.
      
   
   
   2. The court may —
      
      
      1. grant temporary and final injunctions on such terms as it may deem reasonable to prevent or restrain violations of subsection (a)(1) of this section;
         
      
      
      2. award damages as described in paragraph (3); and (C) direct the recovery of full costs, including awarding reasonable attorneys’ fees to an aggrieved party who prevails.
         
   
   
   3. —
      
      
      
      1. Damages awarded by any court under this section shall be computed in accordance with either of the following clauses:
         
         
         
         1. the party aggrieved may recover the actual damages suffered by him as a result of the violation and any profits of the violator that are attributable to the violation which are not taken into account in computing the actual damages; in determining the violator’s profits, the party aggrieved shall be required to prove only the violator’s gross revenue, and the violator shall be required to prove his deductible expenses and the elements of profit attributable to factors other than the violation; or
            
         
         
         2. the party aggrieved may recover an award of statutory damages for all violations involved in the action, in a sum of not less than $250 or more than $10,000 as the court considers just.
      
      
      2. In any case in which the court finds that the violation was committed willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, the court in its discretion may increase the award of damages, whether actual or statutory under subparagraph (A), by an amount of not more than $50,000.
         
      
      
      3. In any case where the court finds that the violator was not aware and had no reason to believe that his acts constituted a violation of this section, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of damages to a sum of not less than $100.
         
      
      
      4. Nothing in this subchapter shall prevent any State or franchising authority from enacting or enforcing laws, consistent with this section, regarding the unauthorized interception or reception of any cable service or other communications service.

Weekend Update (11/16)

This past weekend, the migraines prevailed. I didn’t arrive in Marquette until around midnight Saturday night. I did get a few things done, the most significant of which is the fix-up on Channel 12 – looks good, no?

Other things included posting a channel lineup on Cable Channel 2, tweaking the picture quality and readability of the words on Channel 2, and installing a new Lifetime receiver in Marquette... you will notice that Lifetime now shows “No Signal” instead of just “nothing.” Hey, it’s progress. Sort of. So it’s installed... but has... uh... no signal. That is my next project, to get the Lifetime guys to activate it.

Same thing for Trinity – new satellite receiver needed, but I have one that I believe will work.

After these, I’m hoping to add a new channel in Marquette:

PBS “Create” calls itself “The TV channel for cooking, arts & crafts, gardening, home improvement, and travel.” Hmmm...

Take a look at the Create schedule. Create is on the air 24 x 7. If nothing else, it will be great on those nights that you can’t sleep. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

And, in Marquette, I’m still working on bringing in audio programming from Wichita for Channel 2... which currently is simulcasting the sound from Storm Team 12 Weather (from Cable Channel 41). AM 1330/KNSS is already on Channel 2 in Bentley.

Irony of ironies, my Channel 2 display computer in Bentley is not working... the place to go for information on the cable system has... no information. Just a blinking yellow light... and the light is supposed to be solid green. I also appear to have lost C-SPAN in Bentley. Still pending investigation on that one.

Oh... and yes, I’ll be working on a printed channel guide.

Bills went in the mail yesterday. I believe I’ll be able to get on a normal schedule for December, mailing out the bills around the 1st, but not due until the 25th.

Test My Cable Modem!

New feature... available now in Marquette, coming soon to Bentley (some upgrades are required on the equipment there):

Visit the BlueSkyCable.com web site, and click on Test My Cable Modem.

The test will show you status about the quality and reliability of your cable modem connection, and can also make suggestions and do some troubleshooting.

I’m Not Short on Anything, Except...

...time, money, air, and opportunity!

No, really, it’s just time. A migraine can really slow a fellow down. Two in a row, even better. :(

So at this point, I’m about 24 hours behind on the things I had hoped to accomplish this weekend, which included a new PBS channel in Marquette, adding KNSS AM 1330 to Channel 2 in Marquette, and getting the channel numbers on the “Marquette Listings” page at the blueskycable.com web site updated (most are right, some are not).

If you haven’t seen the listings, check it out – pretty slick.

Also, I have cable lines to re-hang, trouble reports to investigate, and new customers who want my service, all of whom I appreciate very much.

There were some Internet issues this week that were related to trouble “upstream” – that is, things were good here locally, but “on the way” to the Internet there were some issues that were a little bit disruptive – but mostly during overnight hours.

Overall, Internet service is working very well – so if you are having any difficulty, please don’t hesitate to call. Same goes for picture quality.

Thank you to those who have called to let me know that they were receiving additional services for which they were not being billed. If you have some of that, please let me know — I can sign you up, or I can remove the unauthorized services.

I’m continuing to audit the system and remove these unauthorized connections one at a time on my own, but time, time, it all takes time, and your reports make things just that much easier for me.

Bentley City Council, System Status

I had the opportunity to attend the Bentley City Council meeting on Thursday night and I’m grateful to the council, the mayor, the city attorney, and those of you in attendance, for your courtesy and giving me an opportunity to visit with you briefly.

Blue Sky has a financial obligation to the city for some unpaid fees. I’ll be working with the city to make good on those obligations.

I hear different reports from different people on the performance of the Internet service in Bentley… so if you have cheers or jeers for me, I’d like to hear from you.

The Channel 2 system in Bentley has fallen and it can’t get up. It’s a Dell server and apparently has a bad power supply. I’m scrounging for one and will replace it as soon as I can… or replace the whole machine if it comes to that.

I will be in Bentley on Sunday, with a big ’ol list of things to do. More later.

Where’s My Cable Bill?!

Yeah, I’m still workin’ on that. :)

Like I mentioned this weekend, I’m diligently trying to make sure everybody’s bill is correct the first time. Inevitably, things will slip through, so I do request your patience just a little bit longer.

If there is any question in my mind about the accuracy of your bill, I will be including a note of explanation.

I hope to have the bills in your hands before the end of the week.

The Bentley City Council is meeting on Thursday night. I am planning to be there.

I’ve Been Kinda Quiet

’Tis the season... for winter illness, I suppose... I’ve had “one of those things” that everyone says “is going around” ... not enough to lay me out, but too much to let me go full-steam ahead. It finally put me fully out of commission on Friday.

Through the Nyquil haze, I’ve been working towards implementing the new billing system. I don’t have the old one, which is probably just as well considering how temperamental it apparently was. I’m told it was written in Access 95, required Windows 98, and had 7 “patch” CD’s, each patch rendering the database incompatible with previous versions. No thanks.

As I write this, I’m finally to the point where I’m feeling pretty good about the reliability of this new system. The invoices need a little tweaking, but it’s a relatively straightforward process.

Billing is one of those things that you only get one chance to do it right – after that, you’re entrenched, and even if you made a bad choice, now you’re stuck because of how much work would be involved to migrate over.

So this bill that I’m getting ready to mail out is the first one from the new system… and I genuinely hope that when you get yours, it’s accurate… and if it’s not, I hope you’ll let me know and be confident that I will fix it.

I am still in ongoing discussions with Fox News and Lifetime (getting replacement receivers lined up), and HGTV (sorting out a contractual mess).