On Sun, 26 Mar 2006 11:45:11 GMT, Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:

Interesting. There was nothing in there about the reception of
wireless signals.

To wit: What if you just wanted to monitor a broadcast signal -
similar to, let's say, listening to a police scanner? It's fairly
well established law, both domestically and internationally, that once
the signal is in the "ether", it belongs to everyone.

That could keep lawyers busy for about a zillion years. :)

Years ago in a medium-sized community, a company offered a movie
channel service that was broadcast, non-scrambled, over the air. When
you subscribed you got a small antenna and receiver.

A few industrious souls figured out how to make an antenna and
receiver of their own, and proceeded to put them up on their roofs,
getting the service for free.

The company caught wind of this, and took them all to court. One of
the people had some spare cash, and fought the company based on the
belief you mentioned. He lost, and they all had to take down their
receivers and pay a hefty "fine".

This *was* in Kalifornia, however, and we all know that what goes on
there can defy logic at times. :-)

Jack