He illegally provided pay television. Police warn viewers

"Police officers of the Department for Combating Economic Crime of the Municipal Police Headquarters in Tarnów detained a resident of the Tarnów district suspected of manufacturing and marketing prohibited devices used for unauthorized use of services provided electronically," informs the Police Headquarters in Tarnów.

The detained "approximately 40-year-old" man used "specially prepared devices, decoders and the Internet to illegally share the television signal with unauthorized persons."

photo: KMP in Tarnów

The illegal practice lasted for two years - from 2024 to 2026.

We do not know the exact value of the damage caused yet, but police estimates put it at PLN 100,000. zloty.

The man is suspected of committing an act specified in Art. 6 of the Act of July 5, 2002 on the protection of certain services provided electronically based on or involving conditional access - the services report.

As the police explain, such an offense is punishable by up to 3 years in prison.

The services also remind that legal liability may apply to both those organizing illegal activities and those who consciously use this type of services. Depending on the circumstances, a fine or restriction of liberty may be imposed.

- This may be a seemingly cheaper service, but people using such solutions must also take into account legal consequences - warns Kamil Wójcik, spokesman for the Tarnów police, in an interview with Radio Kraków.

Pirates are sailing out into the open sea again

It would seem that piracy is a thing of the past. In the past, the argument of people using illegally shared content was the lack of an alternative. There were simply no platforms in Poland. Today, too many of them have become a problem. It's both bad and bad - pirates defend themselves by saying that they can't pay for all the services because there are too many subscriptions.

According to the SW Research study that we wrote about in February, 6 to 7 million people aged 18-65 use illegal video content in Poland. Piracy itself has also changed. Instead of mass file downloads, illegal streams and shared subscriptions dominate.

The police are trying to behead Hydra, as evidenced by the action of the services in Tarnów and the arrest of a forty-year-old man.