Absolutely nothing, because U.S. law does not prevent Americans from viewing foreign satellite. In fact, the 1st amendment probably protects it.
Also, no Canadian laws were being broken, as the viewing is occurring in the U.S., which is out of Canadian jurisdiction.
While Canadian law can (and does) prevent Canadians from viewing American satellite, American law does not prevent Americans from viewing Canadian (or anyone else's) satellite.
Actually, U.S. law
does prevent people in areas covered by its laws from viewing
scrambled canadian satellite. As the Canadian satellite providers are not licensed to broadcast to viewers within the borders of the U.S., technically they are not entitled to it. Descrambling any signal one isn't entitled to is illegal. The use of brokers circumvents the scrambling - but it does not alter the fact that the signal was scrambled initially. Ergo, viewing those broadcasts is illegal by the letter of the law no matter whether one steals it with a pirated card, builds a device to descramble the signal in their basement out of old computer parts and baling wire, or pays a broker to fraudulently report him as being physically located in Canada.
Which is a shame. It appears that a lot of the reasoning behind not wanting people to be allowed to subscribe to other markets' programming has to do with protecting advertising markets. It seems to me that this logic (should have) gone right out the window the minute that broadcasters start charging for the privilege of receiving the broadcasts.
I do not wish to come across as being against those who use brokers to receive Canadian satellite service. I certainly don't intend to sound like a Mr. Goody-two-shoes, lol. In fact, when I still lived in town I had cable with all the movie channels. I cancelled the movie channels and they only took away about half of them. I did not inform them of their mistake for almost an entire month.
But for someone to feel that they are doing nothing wrong because they are paying for it - even indirectly paying the actual entity that broadcasts the signals - is like the teenager who, upon being informed by the convenience-store clerk that he cannot purchase the case of beer, and so throws the correct amount of money at the clerk and runs out of the store with the beer. Seems to me the kid is still breaking the law, lol.
Although I welcome anyone who is able to convince me that this situation is different. I have recently learned that the real TechTV still exists and is available to Canadians. It would be wonderful to once again be able to get that station, but I just can not see me simply wanting such programming as a valid reason to get it via a broker - and I certainly wouldn't stoop to "stealing the signal" or whatever it's called that the pirates do.
Thoughts?
