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From: eem@jc3b21.UUCP (Emery E. Mandel)
Newsgroups: net.video,net.politics
Subject: Satellite Signal Scrambling
Message-ID: <156@jc3b21.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Feb-86 13:48:02 EST
Article-I.D.: jc3b21.156
Posted: Tue Feb 18 13:48:02 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Feb-86 07:08:45 EST
Organization: St. Petersburg Jr. College, FL
Lines: 36
Xref: watmath net.video:2053 net.politics:13517

Earlier this year, HBO and Cinemax started
scrambling their satellite signals. They said that
they were losing millions because people were able
to get their signal and not pay for it through
"relatively inexpensive" backyard satellite
dishes.

Did they think about how much satellite dish sales
would go down? Did they think about how people
might turn to home video rather than cable and
satellite programming? Did they think about
signal distortion because of the additional
scrambling and descrambling taking place? Did
they think about how customers they had on
CABLE might have discontinued service because of
disgust with the greedy attitude of HBO? How
about the black market for satellite signal
descramblers? They probably didn't think much
of that, either.

Congress could pass legislation which would ban
satellite scrambling but what would be the end
result? HBO might file a lawsuit against the
federal government. Oh no! HBO is on the warpath!
They're suing our government for 10 million of
our tax dollars! Meanwhile, that same 10 million
could go to some better cause. One of the first
thoughts to come to mind is to NASA or to
Medicare. Well, HBO might sue...but it would make
them look bad. You wonder if they care what they
look like, though. After all, they've already
scrambled. What will they think of next?

Emery Mandel

"Gee, sure is warm down here in Florida..."