Freetech says sorry and... // 2009-10-20

DISH Gets Its Apology

Back in late August we reported a significant victory for the DISH Network and the DBS platform’s security provider, NagraStar, as the duo won a mega ($106 million total) judgment against “free-to-air” provider Freetech. Freetech, as you might recall, was snatching the DISH signal and redistributing it – at significant profit – via its receivers.

The U.S. District Court of Northern California didn’t think too much of that and slapped a $97 million judgment against Freetech, $3 million against each of its three top officers plus it barred the company from reopening operations anywhere in the world. But money doesn’t always drive the point home. DISH wanted an apology as well.

Says DISH lawyer in the case, Chad Hagan of the Houston law firm Hagan Noll & Boyle, LLC, DISH hopes that any other would-be pirates “will see this and it will be a reminder that DISH is out there and will come after people” who try to steal its signal.

So here is the official Freetech apology to DISH:

“Freetech, Inc., the South San Francisco based importer and distributor of the Coolsat line of Free-to-Air Satellite receivers announces that it will dissolve and cease operations as part of its agreement to resolve a lawsuit filed by DISH Network, EchoStar Technologies and NagraStar (collectively “DISH Network”).DISH Network filed suit against Freetech in December of 2007 asserting that Coolsat receivers were primarily designed and used for the piracy of DISH Network’s satellite television programming. Freetech acknowledges that Coolsat receivers were used for this purpose and apologizes for any harm caused to DISH Network. As part of the resolution of the lawsuit, the Court entered a consent judgment finding in favor of DISH Network, EchoStar and NagraStar in the aggregate amount of $106,000,000.00 and entering a permanent injunction against Freetech and its officers and certain employees.

Freetech has also agreed to cooperate with DISH Network in its current and future anti-piracy actions.”

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ROLL TIDE !! ROLL

SO THAT MEANS COOLSAT IS OUT EXCEPT FOR FREE TO AIR USE........

I agree with this post because no one is going to risk it by getting into a lawsauit charged with stealing there signal. so , forget it that viewsat its going to pull a fix from their sleave at this very moment.

What bothers me is that they stated they would help DISH NET with other pirates.

The looser always corporates with the Sat. Company's, Any of the older plastic coders will tell you then the other large signal provider went after the same type dealers they also took their books and sent offers out to those that had purchased any type of card loader or reader then they had to pay several thousands of dollars or face a legal action also with fines and jail time up to 10,000 and or 10 yrs .Max.

Then they set up public sites and just took over some that they had busted from Canada to Mexico and the states and when someone logged into down load a Bin file then they just followed the electronic foot print trail and sent them a letter!

I think Dish will do the same thing now they have always hated the FTA just made it to easy for Joe average to get free T.V FTA is anything but testing (: You buy their box and wait for them to send a file..

Only legal saving grace that the FTA offers is that it can be used for legal signal receiving unlike when a J-Tag had to be used to open the Eproom and rewrite to them or some internal circuits and mods where required to alter a Old receiver or a loader/writer was needed to the Cards chip and send a private or public script to it ..Thats when most major coders and such went deep under ground with their sites .

The FTA just made it all to simple and easy thats why the signal providers wanted them to be hit hard..

I remember those days. In fact I still have my modified receiver. My neighbor was one of mentioned persons that paid fine instead of being prosecuted.

cooperating usually means turning over sales records so I ll be waiting on my letter from D!$# for all the coolsats I bought back in the day, i really love fta so I ll just have to let them know thats what they were for.

Well lets hope they don't do that.