cable t v
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For the first 66 years after 1884, when a German inventor figured out how to transmit pictures via wire, television was free. It wasn't until 1950, when the first cable and pay television systems were introduced in the United States, that viewers were expected to pay for some of the signals broadcast to them.
Many viewers were not happy about the change. In 1964 Californians voted to make pay television illegal, and in 1968 the National Association of Theater Owners and the Joint Committee Against Toll TV went to court to block pay television. But the US Supreme Court squashed both efforts, and by 1972, when HBO transmitted its signal to its first 365 subscribers, cable television was entrenched.
Despite nearly 30 years of pay television since then -- including cable, pay-per-view, satellite broadcast, and now interactive television services such as TiVo -- many people still refuse to pay for television. Only now, instead of fighting pay television in the courts, they simply steal it.
The National Cable Television Association estimates that more than 11 million people managed to get cable television for free last year alone. And a 1999 survey conducted by the association's Office of Cable Signal Theft found that cable piracy results in more than $6 billion in losses by cable companies each year.
"CyberCrime" recently conducted an email survey to determine just how and why so many people steal cable and satellite television...