Did They Even Have a Case Against Your Place? The Signal-Path Decoder

Whether the signal-piracy statutes even reached what you did is a real question, and it does not turn on what was on the TV. It turns on facts you have to reconstruct: how the broadcast actually got to the screen, on whose account, and whether that account was residential or commercial. The same picture on the same television can come from a satellite dish, a cable box, an app on a business smart TV, a phone cast over the venue's Wi-Fi, or an over-the-air antenna, and each of those is a different legal path. The self-check below works backward from the screen to sort out which one you actually had.

This Is a Self-Check for You, Not a Report to Anyone

• It runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere, stored, or seen by anyone, including us.
• It is free, it is not gated, and there is nothing to sign up for. This site sells nothing and takes no money from anyone in this field, and how it is funded is public.
• It tells you which statute could apply to the facts you enter and what decides it. It does not adjudicate liability, it never tells you that you are in the clear, and it never names a dollar figure.
• This is a general explanation, not legal advice.

The Decoder

If the tool is not loaded, the logic it runs is written out below, and you can work through it by reading.

Start From the Screen and Work Backward

The mistake almost everyone makes is starting from "it was on the TV." The television is the endpoint, and it tells you almost nothing about the legal path, because every delivery method ends at a screen. The fact that decides which statute could apply is what fed the screen immediately before it, and where that feed came from.

• A satellite receiver (a dish feeding a set-top box) points toward 47 U.S.C. §605, the satellite and radio statute.
• A cable box on a cable system points toward 47 U.S.C. §553, the cable statute.
• An internet or app stream (a streaming service, a browser, a phone or laptop carrying the program over the public internet) is the contested path, and it comes with a separate copyright issue described below.
• A genuine over-the-air antenna picking up a local broadcast is the one path that can genuinely fall outside these statutes, but only if that is truly what happened, not an app or a cable feed remembered loosely as "the TV."

One trap is worth naming before anything else: an app on the screen does not always mean the program arrived over the internet. A provider's app is sometimes just a remote control or a login layer for a cable or satellite receiver, while the audiovisual program still arrives over the cable or satellite line. "We used an app" does not, by itself, answer how the feed reached the room.

The Fact That Trips Most People: Residential Is Not Commercial

The single most common belief that leads owners wrong is "I paid my DIRECTV, cable, or YouTube TV bill, so the showing was covered." It was not, and the reason is in the account, not the picture. Residential accounts are sold under terms that limit them to personal, non-commercial use. Paying a residential bill in full does not license showing the feed to patrons in a bar, restaurant, gym, or other commercial establishment, because commercial exhibition is a separate right the distributor sells separately. This is why these claims exist even when your home account is completely paid up.

So the account question has two parts, and both matter: whose account authorized the stream (the venue's, the owner's personally, an employee's, a customer's, a promoter's, or a vendor's), and whether that account was residential or commercial. A residential login mirrored to a business television is one of the most common fact patterns behind these letters.

Who Arranged It Is a Real Question, and It Is Not "Whose Phone"

"My bartender streamed it on his phone, not me" feels like an answer, and it usually is not the one people think. The useful question is not whose hand held the device but who selected, logged in, routed, approved, and controlled the exhibition at the establishment. An establishment can be responsible for a showing at its premises even when an employee physically set it up. This is a fact question worth getting straight early, but it is not a reason to treat the letter as someone else's problem.

If You Streamed It: Read This Before You Relax

There is a genuine, unsettled legal question about whether §§553/605 reach a broadcast delivered over an internet app rather than a cable or satellite line. Some courts have read the Communications Act statutes to cover cable and satellite signals only; others have gone the other way. Because that question is contested and the current state of the law can shift, this is a point to treat as a live argument, not a settled exit.

Here is the part the "it was just an app" relief usually leaves out: even where that argument has force against the §§553/605 claims, it does not answer the copyright claim. The league, promoter, or network owns the broadcast as a copyrighted work, and a public showing of it can infringe under Title 17 regardless of how the signal was delivered. That copyright claim, and how it fits alongside §§553/605, is explained on the law they are citing. Selecting "I streamed it" is not a clean way out; it changes which claims are strong, not whether you have a problem.

How Sure Are You, Really?

The decoder is only as good as the facts you feed it, and after the fact most people are reconstructing a single night from memory. Before you trust any read, it is worth asking what you can actually prove: the provider invoice, the account portal showing residential or commercial, the receiver or device model, the app or casting history, the router or device logs, or a same-night photo. "We watched it on the TV" is a memory, not a signal path, and a confident wrong answer here produces a confident wrong read. If you are guessing at the path or the account class, the honest result is "cannot be determined from what you know," and the next move is to gather the records, not to lock in the version that sounds best.

The Three Honest Reads

Working through the facts lands you in one of three places, and none of them is a verdict:

• The statute's conditions appear met, as you answered them. A commercial showing, on a residential account, over a cable or satellite path, with no license, tends to land here. This does not mean you owe the number on the letter or any particular amount; it means the claim has a real basis, and the useful next step is a sound response, not denial. What real cases actually cost is on how they detect, demand, sue, and what venues pay.
• The statute may not reach these facts. A genuine over-the-air antenna broadcast, or an internet-only path in a jurisdiction reading §§553/605 narrowly, can land here for the Communications Act claims, but the copyright question above may remain. "May not reach" is not "cannot reach," and it is not a green light to ignore a letter.
• It cannot be determined from what you know. If the signal path or the account class is a guess, this is the honest read, and the work is to find the records that settle it.

The honest default is worth stating plainly: most establishments that showed a feed on a residential account are not exempt from these statutes. A real exemption exists for a narrow set of facts, but it is the exception. If your read is "conditions appear met," that is not a disaster, it is a starting point for a rational response.

What a "Conditions Appear Met" Read Does Not Mean

It does not mean you owe the number on the letter. The statutory maximums are ceilings, not typical awards, and no honest tool can compute your specific exposure, which is why this one does not try. It also does not mean the case is unmanageable. It means the useful next step is understanding the claim (the law they are citing), seeing what these cases actually resolve for (what venues pay), and responding soundly (how to respond to a demand letter).

If the read is "the wrong place or the wrong event" (the letter names a business you do not run, a date you were closed, or an event you did not show), that is a factual response to raise, and it is handled on how to respond to a demand letter.

Frequently Asked Questions

I Paid My DIRECTV or Cable Bill. Doesn't That Cover It?

No, if the account was residential. Residential accounts are sold for personal, non-commercial use, and paying that bill does not license showing the feed to patrons in a commercial establishment. Commercial exhibition is a separate right sold separately, which is why a fully paid residential account does not resolve one of these claims.

We Streamed It on an App. Doesn't That Mean §605 Doesn't Apply?

Not cleanly. Whether §§553/605 reach an internet or app stream is a genuinely contested legal question that can depend on the jurisdiction and the exact delivery path, so it is a live argument rather than a settled exit. And even a successful version of that argument does not answer a copyright claim under Title 17, which can reach a public showing regardless of how the signal was delivered. Streaming changes which claims are strong, not whether there is a problem.

Does It Matter Whether It Was Satellite or Cable?

Yes, because it selects the statute. A satellite feed points to §605 and a cable feed to §553, and the two statutes are built differently, which the page on the law they are citing lays out. What decides it is the actual signal path into the room, not the brand of the television or the fact that Wi-Fi existed somewhere in the building.

The Letter Says §605 but We Don't Have a Dish. Does That Break Their Case?

Not on its own. A mismatch between the statute a letter cites and the path you believe you had is worth documenting and raising, but it is a point for a considered response, not proof the claim fails, and it does not by itself remove a copyright theory. How to raise a factual mismatch like this is covered on how to respond to a demand letter.