[supremus]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

It doesn't matter how unimportant you view it as a crime it is still a crime and if prosecuted you still have a record.

I agree.

As for the insult bit you are just using verbiage to try and cover the fact that you are just talking for the sake of appearing clever...

I am clever, I can't help it.

And your last point is entirely irrelevant..as usual...

No, it isn't. It's very relevant to the topic, since I'd suggest that the main reason a company like VM would be getting serious on piracy is because they're contractually obligated to their content providers to provide a reasonable level of security for their content. Let's say half of EON's customers were getting their electricity without paying for it, that would be a considerable drain on the company's resources, and it would hurt their bottom line. This is not the case for VM. As long as they're pumping the signal into your home anyway, there's no more or less drain on their resource, whether you watch the channels you're subscribed to or leeching premium channels. It's not costing them anything extra. It's for all intents and purposes an infinite source, as long as you have the cable there legally in the first place.

So when we're talking about getting serious on dodgy boxes, as per the subject, it's no coincidence that individual users are merely getting warning letters, and people who sell the illegal products and services are getting visits from the police waving search warrants around. That's where they're getting serious, because those sort of raids produce news stories that will satisfy their content providers. Going after or getting tough with individual users is nonsensical and not at all cost effective. If they wanted to get tough with known, individual users, they'd send a guy out to cut their signal from the box in the street, Instead they try the code changes we've heard about recently, where the aim is to take out as many of these dodgy systems as possible, and with individual, known leechers, all it takes is the cost of a stamp to send them a letter intended to scare them into going straight, as in paying for the service they're currently leeching. I don't know how successful the letter tactic is, but I think these are all important factors to consider in a discussion about where and why the cable companies are really getting serious. Considering the cost of upgrading the security on their network, it makes far more financial sense to try and live up to their contractual obligations to their content providers with the sort of tactics we've seen recently, but as we all know, it realistic terms, there's really nothing serious about what they're doing.