PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT’S Paul Murphy has called for TV company Sky to drop its legal action against dodgy box users, and said there should be increased funding for public broadcasting.

A recent ruling by the High Court has permitted Sky to obtain the details of hundreds of Irish dodgy box users in an effort to clamp down on the illegal practice. 

But Murphy said the use of dodgy boxes is a result of people “being ripped off by multiple subscriptions, or the TV licence”.

“They take what steps they can to avoid unfair charges by using a dodgy box or not paying the licence fee,” he said.

The TD said that “defunding and privatisation of public broadcasting” means broadcast content is controlled by profit-driven media corporations, who charge a “prohibitive” cost for most households.

“Privatisation has allowed corporations to capture a public good, to charge for it, and use legal threats against anyone who tries to avoid their profit-driven agenda. It is a disgrace that the courts have allowed Sky, one of the wealthiest corporations on the planet, to pursue ordinary people through the courts,” he said.

“Access to culture is a human right and shouldn’t be dependent on ability to pay. Sky must drop its greedy legal action.”

Sky declined to comment on Murphy’s statements.

When The Journal asked Murphy about the impact of dodgy boxes infringing on copyright and negatively affecting people working on content being illegally streamed, he said it is a “product of the whole model of production and delivery of media content”.

“It doesn’t work for artists when big, massive corporations like Sky effectively build walls around content and you have to pay to get over these walls. The model is wrong,” he said.

“People using dodgy boxes are not mastermind criminals,” he said, adding that users are disproportionately on lower incomes.

“These people are definitely not the problem and the idea they would be pursued in court by Sky is clearly an attempt to make an example of them,” he added. 

Murphy called for an increase in public broadcasting, outlining that the People Before Profit 2026 budget said an increase of €1bn could be funded through taxation of large and profitable social media and information and communications corporations.

“This would enable multiple public broadcasters to produce high quality content that is made freely available as a public good,” he added.

“We urgently need to end the greedy profiteering of Sky and other media corporations and re-establish high-quality public broadcasting.”

When asked for comment, the Department of Culture said: “This is a legal matter and as such it would be inappropriate for the Department to comment.”