Adrian Weckler

So when we talk about dodgy boxes and people who own them and what's to be done about them, particularly sports rights bodies and broadcasters like Sky or the GA or the FAI or Clubber, which is now owned by Media House, which owns this podcast.

Um, that's the context that we're talking about.

It's not seen as being, um, a significant criminal offense.

It's not seeing, it's not even seen as something that's particularly wrong, even though it is a crime in Ireland.

And just to be clear about this, the copyright act 2000, um,

says that it is a crime to possess or use a copyright protection device, which we call dodgy boxes.

But most people don't agree with that.

And the guards won't enforce it against end users at the moment because there isn't an easy way to do that.

There's no administrative fines set up to do that.

If they were to knock on someone's house, even if they knew that they were using a dodgy box, because they'd raided the distributor and they'd seen the payment details, they would have to mount a prosecution, which would end up in a court date.

And that's quite an intensive process.

They do that for the sellers and the distributors.

But if you have four or five hundred thousand households in the country doing that, they're not going to do that.

And they've told me they won't do that.

So what they're pinning their hopes on, what the broadcasters and the sports rights bodies are pinning their hopes on, is that the law changes here to follow Italy in particular, but also Greece and a couple of other countries following suit now.

So that administrative fines, like penalty points, like getting penalty points in the post if your car is caught speeding and you just get a fine.

And if you don't pay the fine, then the guards come around to your house.

So that's what they're hoping will happen in Ireland.

Maybe 2026, but if not 2026, 2027.

Okay.