Just curious, is “moving” legal?

edisonprime

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Dec 12, 2012
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I want to know for I don’t want to break the law considering “moving” requires deception and violating terms of service. If it turns out it is illegal, I’ll permanently “move” back to my actual location. And if that’s the case, is there a LEGAL WAY to get out-of-market locals?
 
Legal? As in Congress passed a law saying you can't do that under penalty of law? No, it's not illegal, at most it's a violation of the terms of service as you said.

The ONLY reason they want you to get the locals in your DMA, is because THOSE possibly have tv commercials that are local to you. That's a OTA provider consideration, nothing else. Dish NOWS people "move", and they don't care.

The only thing involved here is possibly your conscience, and nothing else.
 
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I want to know for I don’t want to break the law considering “moving” requires deception and violating terms of service. If it turns out it is illegal, I’ll permanently “move” back to my actual location. And if that’s the case, is there a LEGAL WAY to get out-of-market locals?
Fraud is dishonesty to obtain an advantage, or deriving a benefit by deception. Whether it is illegal depends on your State's penal code. If you're not entitled to a particular service, and you use deception to obtain that service, I supposed that could be held as fraud or theft. I've never heard of anyone being charged for this type of act. I suppose if you were Al Capone and some prosecutor just wanted to get your fingerprints on file, he could charge you. It would be a stretch, IMO.

Here is the code under Minnesota law, I've highlighted the pertinent articles:

Subd. 2.Acts constituting theft.​


(a) Whoever does any of the following commits theft and may be sentenced as provided in subdivision 3:


(1) intentionally and without claim of right takes, uses, transfers, conceals or retains possession of movable property of another without the other's consent and with intent to deprive the owner permanently of possession of the property; or


(2) with or without having a legal interest in movable property, intentionally and without consent, takes the property out of the possession of a pledgee or other person having a superior right of possession, with intent thereby to deprive the pledgee or other person permanently of the possession of the property; or


(3) obtains for the actor or another the possession, custody, or title to property of or performance of services by a third person by intentionally deceiving the third person with a false representation which is known to be false, made with intent to defraud, and which does defraud the person to whom it is made. "False representation" includes without limitation:


(i) the issuance of a check, draft, or order for the payment of money, except a forged check as defined in section 609.631, or the delivery of property knowing that the actor is not entitled to draw upon the drawee therefor or to order the payment or delivery thereof; or


(ii) a promise made with intent not to perform. Failure to perform is not evidence of intent not to perform unless corroborated by other substantial evidence; or


(iii) the preparation or filing of a claim for reimbursement, a rate application, or a cost report used to establish a rate or claim for payment for medical care provided to a recipient of medical assistance under chapter 256B, which intentionally and falsely states the costs of or actual services provided by a vendor of medical care; or


(iv) the preparation or filing of a claim for reimbursement for providing treatment or supplies required to be furnished to an employee under section 176.135 which intentionally and falsely states the costs of or actual treatment or supplies provided; or


(v) the preparation or filing of a claim for reimbursement for providing treatment or supplies required to be furnished to an employee under section 176.135 for treatment or supplies that the provider knew were medically unnecessary, inappropriate, or excessive; or


(4) by swindling, whether by artifice, trick, device, or any other means, obtains property or services from another person; or
 
Its not fraud or stealing if you are paying for service...in the olden days dish retailers encouraged " moving" because locals were not available everywhere...its a different world today
 
Its not fraud or stealing if you are paying for service.
True, but OP is not paying for the service he/she is receiving. That's like saying "I bought a ticket to a high school football game, so I'm entitled to sneak in to see the Vikings on Sunday".

If OP is paying for Rochester locals and receiving Minneapolis locals through deception...............well, like I said, it's a stretch. OP asked a legitimate question, I showed him the penal code for his State. He/she can make up their own mind.
 
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No..not at all..locals cost the same price everywhere

OTA was supposed to be free with an antenna. Then..thru fraud and deception..with the help of congress..evil greedy station owners extorted money from cable and satellite providers...back in the day ...NY locals were easily available on satellite...then they wanted proof an atenna didn't work and so forth...really no crime at all in moving unless dish makes it one by suspending service
 
No..not at all..locals cost the same price everywhere
Bottom line, OP is obtaining through deception a service for which he/she is not entitled, regardless of price. If OP is not deriving a benefit, he/she wouldn't be "moving". OP has no legal or contractual claim to the service.
 
Bottom line, OP is obtaining through deception a service for which he/she is not entitled, regardless of price. If OP is not deriving a benefit, he/she wouldn't be "moving". OP has no legal or contractual claim to the service.
No he is not..he is not stealing anything...paying the same price he would if he lived in that area...its up to the satellite providers to police it
 
Bottom line, OP is obtaining through deception a service for which he/she is not entitled, regardless of price. If OP is not deriving a benefit, he/she wouldn't be "moving". OP has no legal or contractual claim to the service.
If I have an OTA antenna capable of receiving more than one DMA , am I violating any laws, rules, or even a TOS? The FCC says providers can't supply out of market signals except in limited circumstances, but they do not say I can't receive those out of market signals.
 
interesting....for 6 1/2 years you talk about "moving" in multiple threads and ask reasons on why one "moves" and now you decide to ask if its legal?

threads in question where you either ask about "moving" or tout that you are "moved"


and in this thread you brought up that "moving" is against FCC regulations

you're going to get both sides of the argument. Its up to you whether or not you feel its moral or not.
 
Uh oh, somebody's going to local channel jail! :biggrin
Probably me... ;) We were at our friend's farm in VT for a couple of weeks and then moved here to NY last week. While we were in VT, I used the MyDish app to change our locals to the dual Albany, NY/Burlington, VT DMA's for Pownal, VT. Now we're in NY where we should only get the Albany, NY DMA, but since I left our service address set to VT, we still get both DMA's. We'll be back in VT again in a couple of weeks, so I didn't see any point in changing the service address.
 
This would be a lot more fun if it weren't for spot beams. :mad:

Not worth the $12.99 to get some nearby small market locals.
 
I have always wondered why people ask questions like this in forums. If you are really concerned about whether something is legal or not then you should probably be asking a lawyer, or at least in a legal forum. However for something that may be technically illegal but that almost no one is ever prosecuted for (in other words, the type of act people do all the time, often without even knowing they have broken some obscure law), then chances are you are going to follow your own conscience and sense of morality anyway, and all you are really looking for is some assurance that what you are doing is okay. Unfortunately the Internet is full of people with opinions on the law (both lawyers and non-lawyers) so most of the time somebody's going to tell you that you are doing something illegal, because if there was no chance at all that it was illegal you probably wouldn't be asking in the first place. So, asking the Internet is probably going to cause you even more distress.

The question you should probably REALLY should be asking is "What's the worst that could happen, and am I willing to accept that risk?" As a practical matter, the worst that is probably going to happen, assuming someone in the government is not really out to get you, is that you would get kicked off DN for a TOS violation. But for that to happen they'd first have to know what you have done. And since DN probably doesn't want to lose a customer, the most likely remedy they would exercise is to change your locals to the ones you are "supposed" to be getting - after all it is in their interest to keep that income stream going, and they gain absolutely nothing by kicking you off the service. But again, that only happens IF they find out about it. Are you going to tell them? Probably not. But by posting in a forum such as this one, you actually increase the odds that someone will, because you are telling the whole Internet (or at least the subset that has read your post) what you are doing. So, again, I am just baffled why people post this type of question on the Internet.

(Reminds me of the days when people used to hook up their own extension telephones to Ma Bell's service, back in the days when you weren't supposed to do that and in some states it was technically a felony to do it, or so Public Utility Commission representatives would tell you. Whenever a phone guy found an "illegal" extension he'd disconnect it and warn the customer never to do it again or their service would be disconnected. But the only time they ever actually followed through was if the phone was causing serious problems on the network and the customer just kept hooking it back up. Otherwise it was always threats, but no action, because that would cut off a revenue stream. When Radio Shack started selling extension phones, a local Radio Shack manager hooked one up to their General Telephone line for demonstration purposes, and General Telephone promptly threatened to disconnect their phone service. The manager dared them to do it, and never heard a word about it from General Telephone again. Soon thereafter, customer-owned extensions became legal. I'm guessing General Telephone did not want to lose several hundred dollars a month in long distance revenue over an "illegal" extension.)
 
I would say its a grey area, but not illegal that you are going to be arrested.

I have in the past used a VPN and Locast to watch news from around the country when there is breaking news happening.
Talk like that will get you banned from the other site...thank you for allowing a reasonable discussion on moving
 
If I have an OTA antenna capable of receiving more than one DMA , am I violating any laws, rules, or even a TOS? The FCC says providers can't supply out of market signals except in limited circumstances, but they do not say I can't receive those out of market signals.
I don't know Dutch. I am not aware of any laws against receiving more than one set of locals via antenna. However, I'm hardly an authority on such matters.

That wasn't the OP's questions though. He asked if it was illegal to give a false service address to obtain a particular service from DISH. I showed him parts of the penal code which may or may not apply. I also added that I've never heard of anyone being charged with a crime for that and I doubted anyone ever would. That doesn't make it legal. "Moving" is using deception to obtain a service of which you are not otherwise entitled. The fact that you may be paying for an equivalent service is irrelevant.

For the record, in eleven years of full time RV'ing, I changed my service address dozens of times per year and never gave much thought about whether I was still in that DMA or not. I didn't worry about it then and wouldn't now. However, what's good, bad, right, wrong, or morally justified, etc. has nothing to do with the OP's question.
 
The issue is between Dish and the Broadcasters and their local stations. Dishes promises to only deliver Locals and the associated advertising to people within the spot DMA to get the permission to rebroadcast the signals. Without such agreement, everyone would move to places not at home and the advertising revenues to the local stations would drop and not cover the fees the local stations pay the broadcast channels.

Failure on Dish's part to audit movers when the DMA rules came in is what pulled Dish's to offer DNS. Dish probably wouldn't care if it wasn't having to deal with the broadcast networks.
 
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