Pirate decryption

Pirate decryption most often refers to the decryption, or decoding, of pay TV or pay radio signals without permission from the original broadcaster. The term "pirate" in this case is used in the sense of copyright infringement and has little or nothing to do with sea piracy, nor with pirate radio, which involved the operation of a small broadcast radio station without lawfully obtaining a license to transmit. The MPAA and other groups which lobby in favour of intellectual property (specifically copyright and trademark) regulations have labelled such decryption as "signal theft" even though there is no direct tangible loss on the part of the original broadcaster, arguing that losing out on a potential chance to profit from a consumer's subscription fees counts as a loss of actual profit.