Do I have the moral right to secretly hook up to the cable tv company, even though it is illegal?

Question

I can run my own wire right to their open cable connectors, and it is not stealing since I won't be disconnecting anyone else or weakening anyone's signal; I am not taking something away from someone else (which is what happens when one steals a physical object). I am not harming the cable company since I am not going to buy their service anyway. If I cannot watch it for free, I simply won't watch it. I watched the World Series for free last year, since I did not buy any of the products the advertisers who paid for the tv production were promoting. And when I look at my neighbors' pretty yards, I get pleasure without having to pay for it, and I am not stealing from my neighbors even though they did a lot of work making their yards be beautiful. Since connecting to a cable box is not taking away something from someone else, but just reproducing it for myself, do the cable companies and the government have the moral right to make it illegal for people to hook up to the box on their own? Why or why not?

Answer 1

It's theft.

"Thou shalt not steal."

Not a complicated decision.

Answer 2

You're putting a lot of justification to your theft. People do similar things and nobody's perfect, but it's better to be honest with yourself and just acknowledge that you are stealing cable services.

Answer 3

well it is illegal because u have to get them profit for having those channels and using their frequency but S***e i do it lol.

Answer 4

It's illegal because you're STEALING cable.

However you do have the right to call them and PAY to have the people come out and hook it up.  

Answer 5

If you can live with yourself and get away with it, who the heck am I to tell you what is right or wrong. You should have a pretty good idea. I am not going judge on you. I dont want anything coming back this way.lol

Answer 6

I think the main difference between the garden owners, the sponsors for the baseball game, and the cable company, is that the latter hasn't given you consent to take their service without payment.  The gardener knows that people will be viewing the garden, and that is a large part of the reason that they put so much effort into it.  It's for their own pleasure as well as for those around them.  The game sponsors are fully aware that not every single person who sees their commercial is going to purchase their product.  They do it on the idea that at least some of the people who view it, will.  The cable company, on the other hand, has spent large sums of money to put those cables into place, for the express purpose of having people pay for them.  Even if it is a large corporation, you're taking advantage of someone's hard work and not giving them anything in exchange, even though it is expected of you.

I think it's your moral obligation to pay for a service if the provider of the service expects compensation for their work, especially if you consent to accept said service.

Answer 7

Govt. doesn't dictate what is moral...not supposed to anyway

However,

Technically you are stealing....despite you're long rationalization.

You're getting product [in the form of TV shows etc.] for nothing....imagine if 1,000,000 people aquired your self setup skills.....that's 1 million people watching but not paying. The question then becomes, why is anyone paying? With you're rationalization the whole system would break down eventually.

But if you can get it and you don't feel like you're stealing, they're is certainly no one stopping you.

Answer 8

What you do makes you into who you are.  Do you want to become a person who works the situation to get what you want?  Manipulating and secretive?

Sit down and  purposely decide what you want your character to be and work to become that person.  Do you want to be (be as in being) honest and compassionate?  Then work at it.  

Answer 9

Whatever your opinion of corporate power, they sell a service and you are proposing stealing that service.  That's theft in any language.  

If you were in a country with a repressive government, fighting for relief from oppression, that might be different.  Just wanting cable is not justification.

It's theft, it's dishonest, it's illegal.