We did say that the $1 billion legal action brought by NagraStar and Dish against NDS would end quietly, and so it has, with a minor damage claim being found by a jury trial, and the whole thing disappointing as a spectacle.
It had promised to show spies and evil geniuses hacking NDS rivals’ technology, instead it ended with a sharp dose of reality and a fine under $1,000 and picking up of the opposition’s legal fees. The counter claim, that Dish only brought the case because it lost the bidding to buy DirecTV all those years ago, rings truer than the initial claims that NDS employed a hacker ring to take down the Nagra conditional access security.
Details from leaked NDS emails, stolen from the PC of one of its heads of security, were supposed to feature as the main evidence, but nothing of that nature has leaked out of the proceedings.
The action alleged violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Communications Act of 1934, and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, California’s Unfair Competition statute and the Federal RICO statute on racketeering. The actual award was a single incident involving a test card used by NDS.
Dish Network said after the trial ‘We are pleased that after four weeks of testimony on all the facts, the jury concluded that NDS violated the Federal Communications Act and the California Penal Code. 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.’