FCC Levies Landmark Max Fine On Repeat Pirate

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The FCC has slapped one pair of NYC pirates with the largest fine Congress allows – $2,316,034. This could only be the beginning, as post-COVID sweeps ramp up to hunt down illegal broadcasters.

The New York City operator is a repeat offender, operating out of Queens for more than ten years. The first three Notices of Unauthorized Operation came in 2013. The next year, one of the two operators confessed to running the station and was told to cease. In 2015, the FCC levied a $20,000 fine that was never paid or acknowledged. The station never stopped, even after their equipment was seized. Now the repeat offenders face the maximum fine allowed by the PIRATE Act of 2020.

The FCC also announced an $80,000 fine to an operator in Oregon who was shut down two times, but only agreed to stop broadcasting after the landowner where the transmitter was located was threatened with a penalty as well.

1 COMMENT

  1. Good luck collecting that! A small ethnic pirate operator in New York City is not exactly Cumulus, iHeart, or Audacy. Could this pirate end up in prison due to inability to pay the fine? Or, if he is not a citizen, would the government just deport him to his home country (Ecuador)?

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