stolen dreams, Bahraini-style
Posted by adiamondinsunlight on November 12, 2009
Sometimes I miss having a television. When I do, its not the long waits on Verizon’s customer service line that come to mind (or at least, not with any fondness!). What I remember are the curiously entertaining monthly visits from my grey-market satellite tv provider in Beirut.
I thought of those days again this morning, when this snippet from AME Info caught my eye:
The head of Orbit Showtime Middle East said illegal satellite users outnumber legitimate subscribers in Bahrain by five to one, forcing the company to ‘fight for its survival’, Gulf Daily News has reported. Marc-Antoine d’Halluin said the extent of illegal Dreambox usage is so severe that it has prompted the company to take a more hands-on approach to protecting its intellectual property rights. ‘There is no larger challenge for Orbit Showtime than to protect our business and to ensure that our product is not stolen via users of the Dreambox,’ he told the paper.
Yes, yes. I do understand the difficulties that illegal satellite usage poses to Orbit’s bottom line. But part of me smiled, thinking: Bahrain sounds like a place I could get into 
.
