I refer to the article about the illegal watching of satellite TV broadcasts (May 13) and would like to point out three important points.

The law states that it is illegal to watch pay-TV programmes without a subscription in the countries where a regular subscription is available.

Since as was correctly stated in the same article, in Malta there is no company that sells pay-TV subscriptions, watching pay-TV here without a subscription does not make it illegal at all.

The pay-TV companies regularly transmit encrypted microwave video transmissions into our houses whether we like it or not.

Whether this is ethical or not (especially in view of the fact that the health issue is as yet unsolved) is debatable but if someone is so good as to be able to decipher the transmitted signal and watch the pay-TV free, why should the government enact legislation against this?

Should it not be up to the company to provide increased security as pointed out in your article?

Software used by the pay-TV companies to encrypt their transmissions changes every month, and since these so-called "keys" vary, they are not copyrightable.

It is therefore wrong to talk of copyright infringements and piracy when people copy such keys for use with their own satellite receivers.

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