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Illegal Dreambox viewing crackdown in Cyprus continues
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Police are to decide how to proceed with the island-wide crackdown against illegal Dreambox viewing after the Attorney General advised against subscribers being prosecuted.
The heat appears to be temporarily off subscribers after it emerged that illegal viewing on the island was more widespread than originally anticipated.
The Attorney General argued that prosecuting each and every illegal subscriber would be a mammoth task which would require a huge police effort and incur a massive legal cost. The result might also mean a significant diversion of police manpower and attention from more urgent crimes.
This does not, however, change the fact that subscribers are breaking the law and the authorities have not ruled out the possibility of house searches as part of the crackdown campaign.
CID Headquarters Chief Yiannakis Charalambous said police were continuing to track and shut down all outlets selling illegal receivers that enable free access to pay-TV channels.
“We do not have accurate figures of how many illegal viewers there are on the island at the moment but we know that we are dealing with thousands at least,” said Charalambous.
Two illegal Dreambox suppliers were arrested in Limassol last week and a third outlet was raided in Larnaca over the weekend. In both raids the police confiscated servers, Dreambox decoders and dozens of devices used for copying subscriber cards.
“We have still not ruled out the possibility that subscribers will be prosecuted,” said Charalambous “and at this point we know that some subscribers will be used to testify as witnesses against their suppliers of illegal Dreambox services.”
Viewers who have signed up with providers who have been raided will have already had their signal terminated.
Subscribers can pay up to €600 for an illegal Dreambox installation and a year’s subscription. And police believe they are sending out a strong message to viewers who have found themselves without a signal before the Champions League games are to be aired.
“There are a number of ways to track down illegal subscribers,” said Charalambous. “Once we have confiscated a server from a distributor we have immediate access to the IP addresses of all the company’s customers and their details.”
Although Dreambox is used often illegally, it should be noted that the device itself is not an illegal receiving unit.
The problem lies with illegal software patches and subscriber cards which are developed and distributed by Pay-TV hackers, often for half the price of the originals.
Illegal subscribers and providers of Dreambox are open to both criminal and civil liability according to lawyer Achilleas Demetriades. In the case of criminal liability the police/state are eligible to prosecute the defendant before the court. This means illegal Dreambox subscribers could potentially face a fine of up to €50,000 or receive a prison sentence of up to three years.
When it comes to civil liability, whoever loses out can make a claim. This p*ts illegal viewers at risk of being sued by legal pay-TV providers who have suffered revenue loss through illegal viewing.
“With thousands of euros in potential revenue at stake, pay TV-providers take signal theft very seriously,” said Demetriades.
He added that it would take a change in perception on the part of the public to understand that, like shoplifting, signal theft is not a victimless crime.
“We should not forget that what’s happening here is a case of simple theft,” says Demetriades. “It is clear that TV companies lose out when they pay a lot of money to secure content which is then broadcast illegally but it is also a government concern.
The wider issue here is that illegal signal providers are evading VAT and potentially costing the state hundreds of thousands of euros each year.
“For example, pay-TV providers in Cyprus charge between €27.50 and €70.15 for monthly subscriptions to various TV packages. If we were to assume that viewers pay an average of €50 a month (including 15% VAT) this would mean that each viewer would pay €7.5 VAT a month.
If we were to then assume that there are 10,000 illegal subscribers on the island that would amount to €75,000 a month in tax evasion and €900,000 a year,” said Demetriades.
In other words, signal theft means a loss of revenue for the state that would otherwise be covered by legitimate subscribers.
“This sum is pocketed by the illegal signal providers and, as you can see, we are talking about serious money,” said Demetriades.
