NDS Escapes $1 Billion Piracy Claims

SANTA ANA, May 16: A
federal court jury has denied a $1-billion damages
claim in a piracy suit brought by satellite platform DISH Network against the
News Corporation majority owned conditional-access company NDS.

The lawsuit
alleged that NDS employed a hacker to break into DISH’s system to steal codes.
DISH maintained that those codes were then made available online, allowing
people to steal the platform’s signal. The claim had sought more than $1
billion in damages. The jury ruled that NDS had only been responsible for
piracy in one instance. NDS says the jury awarded actual damages of $45.69 or,
in statutory damages, $1,000, solely relating to the single incident involving
a test card used by NDS. The trial, first filed in 2003, lasted a month.

NDS said in a
statement that it was pleased that the trial, “in which NDS faced baseless
allegations, widely repeated and exaggerated to suggest the involvement of our
majority shareholder News Corporation, has ended in a resounding affirmation of
NDS and its business ethics and proper conduct.”

The statement
continued: “NDS has been at the forefront of fighting pay-TV piracy for the
last decade, on the technological front, as well as on the legislative and law
enforcement fronts. We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve
our current record of zero piracy. We have stated consistently throughout the
course of this trial that the piracy of Echostar was the result of inferior
technology arising from inadequate investment in research and development by
Kudelski. This position has been validated with today’s verdict.”

DISH released a statement
following the verdict noting: “While we are disappointed in the jury's damages
award, we are pleased that NDS will be responsible for our attorney fees in
this case, and that we were completely vindicated on NDS' meritless
counterclaims.”

—By Mansha Daswani