EchoStar, DISH Win Freetech Piracy Case
8/25/2009 @ 7:25 PM
DISH Network, EchoStar Technologies and conditional access provider NagraStar on Tuesday announced that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California had ordered a $97 million consent judgment and permanent injunction against Freetech, the maker of a device used to pirate DISH's DBS signal.

The judgement, which came as the result of a lawsuit filed by DISH and the other plaintiffs, also included $9 million in damages for three of Freetech's corporate officers/owners.

As a result, Freetech agreed to forfeit all of its liquid assets and inventory to DISH Network and shut down operations immediately

and this does not sound good but can you explain who Freetech is? Here I go to Goggle again!

Coolsat receivers! Goggled and read some articles about previous court order denying list of purchasers... but that was from Sept of last year... why would that status change now?

They just wanted to shut them down, they will probably file bk

Dmac thanks for the response! I just want to hang onto my money but it seems everyone else is trying to get it! <grin>

Further Update - 8-26-09

U.S. District Court Rules Against Freetech

John Eggerton -- Multichannel News, 8/26/2009 11:15:15 AM EDT


Dish Network, co-owned equipment supplier EchoStar Technologies, and conditional access supplier Nagrastar have scored a big victory in their battle against signal piracy, according to the companies.
Dish said Tuesday that a California U.S. District Court had entered a $97 million judgment against Freetech Inc., which had been marketing a device under the COOLSAT brand to pirate Dish signals, said the satellite company. There was also a $9 million judgment against the company's officers and owners.
In addition, Freetech agreed to forfeit its liquid assets to Dish and shut down its worldwide business.

A call to Freetech had not been returned at press time.

BY-BY -- COOLSAT

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Damn thats alot of cake!!!

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Couild be bad for more companys now that they have a victory, it will make it easier to go after more now that it has been won in court they can refer back to this case..

Hold on DMac1 - NO PRECEDENT SET!!!!!

Freetech did not loose in a trial, this was a plea bargain!
This was an out of court settlement. Evidently the laywers for freetech advised them to bite the bullet and settle. This therefore does not set a precedent so it does not affect any other manufacturer. They probably agreed on no criminal charges in the plea bargain besides.

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explain that to me please? I thought plea bargin was just as good as saying you'd be getting caught anyway let's just settle outta court... we'd be getting off better than if we'd go through court? If I was innocent, I'd be fighting all the way. So what happened that they gave in to their lawyers whim? Seems to me that Freetech needs new lawyers! I'm sorry, I'm just trying to understand this whole concept. How could they just cave in? And I do appreciate comments... this is all new to me and I really am trying to understand what is going on. The way I understand it is what dMac said... it does set an "example".