Satellite TV pirate gets seven years; DirecTV to get restitution - 2004-12-09 - Los Angeles Business from bizjournals:
"Martin C. Mullen, who was convicted for pirating DirecTV signals, was sentenced to seven years in prison today at the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Mullen was also ordered to pay DirecTV and a subsidary of NDS Ltd., which provides the 'smart cards' used in DirecTV decoders, a total of $24 million in restitution, according to a statement by DirecTV.
Throughout the 1990s and into 2001, Mullen made thousands of illegal smart cards, used to descramble the DirecTV signal. He started out in the 1980s, making technologies that descrambled C-band satellite signals.
By the time the piracy scheme was busted, there were reportedly more than 100 sub-dealers of the pirated DirecTV cards.
After the piracy scheme was broken up, DirecTV and NDS has been working to make new smart cards that are not as easily pirated.
DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) is based in El Segundo and is the second-largest pay television service in the United States, with more than 13.5 million customers. "
