47 U.S.C. § 605 — Unauthorized publication or use of communications

(a) Prohibited practices. Except as chapter 119 of title 18 authorizes, a person who receives, helps receive, transmits, or helps transmit an interstate or foreign wire or radio communication may not reveal or publish its existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning except through authorized channels. The person may disclose it only to: (1) the addressee, agent, or attorney; (2) a person employed or authorized to forward it; (3) proper accounting or distributing officers of communication centers through which it passes; (4) the ship’s master under whom the person serves; (5) a response to a subpoena from a court with jurisdiction; or (6) another lawful authority’s demand. A person not authorized by the sender may not intercept a radio communication and disclose it. A person not entitled to a radio communication may not receive it or help receive it, or use it or its information for personal benefit or another unauthorized person’s benefit. A person who knowingly receives an intercepted radio communication or learns its contents knowing it was intercepted may not disclose or use it or its information for those benefits. These rules do not apply to radio communications sent for the general public, concerning ships, aircraft, vehicles, or people in distress, or sent by an amateur or citizens-band radio operator.

(b) Exceptions. Subsection (a) does not apply to an individual’s interception or receipt of satellite cable programming for private viewing, or help with that interception or receipt, including making or selling equipment, if (1) the programming is not encrypted and (2)(A) no marketing system exists in which an agent is lawfully designated to authorize private viewing and authorization is available from that agent, or (B) such a system exists and the viewers obtained authorization under it.

(c) Public Broadcasting Service programming. No one may encrypt or keep encrypting satellite-delivered programs in PBS’s National Program Service that are meant for public viewing by television-broadcast retransmission. But if at least one unencrypted satellite transmission of a program is provided, additional encrypted transmissions of that same program are allowed.

(d) Definitions. “Satellite cable programming” means satellite-transmitted video programming primarily intended for direct receipt by cable operators for retransmission to cable subscribers. “Agent” includes an employee of the person concerned. “Encrypt,” for satellite cable programming, means transmitting it with its sound or picture, or both, modified to prevent unauthorized receipt by people lacking authorized equipment that removes the modification. “Private viewing” means private use in an individual’s home, using equipment the individual owns or operates that can receive the programming directly from a satellite. “Private financial gain” does not include gain from an individual’s private home use of programming that the individual did not authorize for that use. “Any person aggrieved” includes anyone with property rights in the intercepted wire or radio communication, including wholesale and retail satellite-cable-programming distributors; for a violation of subsection (e)(4), it also includes a person lawfully making, distributing, or selling equipment needed to authorize or receive that programming. This section does not define any other quoted term.

(e) Penalties and civil remedies. (1) A person who willfully violates (a) may be fined up to $2,000, imprisoned up to six months, or both. (2) If the violation is willful and for direct or indirect commercial advantage or private financial gain, the first conviction carries up to $50,000, up to two years’ imprisonment, or both; a later conviction carries up to $100,000, up to five years, or both. (3)(A) An aggrieved person may sue in a United States^* district court or another court with jurisdiction for a violation of (a) or paragraph (4). (B) The court may issue temporary or final injunctions on reasonable terms to prevent or stop (a) violations, may award the damages in (C), and must award full costs, including reasonable attorney fees, to a prevailing aggrieved party. (C)(i) The aggrieved party may choose actual damages plus violator profits attributable to the violation that were not included in actual damages; the party need prove only gross revenue, while the violator must prove deductible expenses and profit from other factors. Or the party may choose statutory damages of $1,000 to $10,000 for each (a) violation, and $10,000 to $100,000 for each paragraph (4) violation, as the court considers just. (ii) For a willful violation for commercial advantage or private financial gain, the court may increase actual or statutory damages by up to $100,000 for each (a) violation. (iii) If the violator did not know and had no reason to believe the conduct violated this section, the court may reduce damages to at least $250. (4) A person who knowingly, or with reason to know, makes, assembles, modifies, imports, exports, sells, or distributes equipment primarily helping unauthorized decryption of satellite cable programming or direct-to-home satellite services, or intended for another activity prohibited by (a), may be fined up to $500,000 for each violation, imprisoned up to five years for each, or both. Each device’s prohibited activity is a separate violation for all penalties and remedies. (5) These penalties add to penalties under other provisions of this subchapter. (6) States and their political subdivisions may still enact or enforce laws about importing, selling, making, or distributing equipment intended to help intercept or receive radio communications prohibited by (a).

(f) Other laws. This section does not affect rights, duties, or liabilities under title 17, its rules or orders, or any other applicable Federal, State^*, or local law.

(g) Universal encryption inquiry. The Commission must inquire whether a universal encryption standard allowing decryption of satellite cable programming for private viewing is needed. It must consider (1) consumer costs and benefits, including existing equipment investment; (2) technological improvements, including advanced television; (3) whether the standard would prevent present and future unauthorized decryption; (4) costs and benefits for other authorized users, including cable and satellite master antenna television systems; (5) its effect on competition in making decryption equipment; and (6) the effect of Commission-procedure delays needed to establish standards.

(h) Rulemaking. If the Commission decides from the subsection (g) information that a universal encryption standard is necessary and in the public interest, it must begin a rulemaking to establish one.