You Got a Signal-Piracy Demand Letter, No Suit Yet. Here Is How to Respond.

A demand letter from Joe Hand Promotions, G&G Closed Circuit Events, J&J Sports Productions, Innovative Sports Management, or a firm such as Lonstein Law is a claim by the event's authorized commercial distributor that your establishment showed a broadcast it was not licensed to show. It is real and it is lawful. It is also, in almost every case, not the $110,000 the letter tends to lead with. That number is a statutory ceiling for a willful satellite violation, not a bill anyone has decided you owe.

Before you do anything else, confirm one thing: are you holding a pre-suit demand letter, or have you been served with a filed lawsuit? The two look alike to someone seeing either for the first time, but they run on different clocks and call for different first moves. This page walks the response to a demand letter, the stage before any suit exists. If you have been served, the situation has already changed, and the very next section tells you where to go instead. Sort that first; everything else follows from it.

Is This a Letter, or Have You Been Served?

Read the document for two things: a court case number and a deadline to respond to a court. Their presence changes everything about what you do next.

If Your Document Has a Case Number and a Court Deadline, Stop Here. A summons and complaint, a request to waive service of a filed suit, or a notice of default all mean a federal lawsuit already exists. A federal answer is due on a fixed clock, and a missed deadline can produce a default judgment entered against you without your side ever being heard. Defending a filed federal case is not a do-it-yourself task, and nothing on this page is a reason to delay. This is the point to retain a lawyer who handles signal-piracy or commercial-broadcast defense now, and to start at what to do when you have been served with a federal lawsuit. The steps below are for a pre-suit letter only.

If there is no case number and no court deadline, you are holding a pre-suit demand letter. That means you have time to work through this methodically rather than urgency to react. Everything from here assumes that is your situation.

First, Protect Yourself: What Not to Do This Week

The single most useful thing you can do in the first week is avoid the moves that make the claim stronger or harder to resolve. None of this is about evading a legitimate claim; it is about not handing the other side leverage before you understand your own position.

• Do not call or email to explain, apologize, or tell your side. A demand letter is written by lawyers who litigate these cases, and a conversation meant to be helpful can confirm the exact facts that raise the exposure: that you showed the event, that you charged a cover, roughly how many people were there. Anything you say or write can become part of the record. There is no version of “I’ll just call and clear this up” that improves your position at this stage.
• Do not fill out a questionnaire or sign anything yet. Some contacts arrive with a form asking you to describe what happened. Completing it before you understand the claim is the written version of the phone call above.
• Do not ignore it either. Silence feels safe, but ignoring a demand letter is the path most likely to turn it into a filed lawsuit, and a filed lawsuit missed on its clock becomes a default judgment. Not reacting is not the same as not making it worse.
• Do not volunteer facts you were not asked for. Even a truthful, well-meant detail about the event, the account, or the night can add to the picture the other side is building.

What This Means for You The calm, non-committal path is the strong one here: acknowledge to yourself that the letter is real, note the deadline it states, and do not engage on the substance until you have done the work below and decided, ideally with a lawyer, how you want to respond. Deciding to say nothing substantive yet is a decision, not avoidance.

Preserve Your Records Without Crossing Into Spoliation

There is an instinct, once a legal threat arrives, to clean things up: pull the receiver box, wipe the DVR, delete the Facebook post that advertised the fight, or quietly switch the account. Resist all of it. Destroying or altering records that relate to the claim is called spoliation, and it can hurt you far more than the underlying showing, because a court can treat missing evidence as if it would have been unfavorable to you.

The correct move is the opposite: preserve everything as it is. That includes the television or streaming account and its billing history, any record of the event and how it was shown, the venue’s signage or promotion, point-of-sale and cover-charge records for that night, and any related messages. You do not have to hand these over to anyone yet. You do have to keep them intact, because they are also what lets you or a lawyer test whether the claim is accurate in the first place.

Verify the Claim Against Your Own Facts

A demand letter asserts a set of facts. Before treating those facts as settled, check them against your own, because the letter can be wrong about who, what, or how.

• Is the sender actually the rights holder’s authorized agent? The named distributors and their counsel generally are, but confirm the letter identifies the specific event and the rights it claims, rather than a generic threat.
• Is it your establishment, your event, and your entity? Demand letters are sent in volume, and a wrong address, a former owner, a different business at your location, or an event you did not show are all real possibilities. If the letter names the wrong party or the wrong night, that is a substantive issue to raise correctly, not a reason to stay silent and hope it self-corrects.
• Did the statute even reach how you showed it? Which law applies, and whether it applies at all, turns on the signal path: a satellite feed falls under §605, a cable feed under §553, and how an internet-app stream is treated is contested. Working out your own signal path is a diagnostic in itself, and the signal-path decoder walks those branches, including the wrong-venue and mistaken-identity cases.

Paying a residential DIRECTV, cable, or streaming bill does not license a commercial showing, so “I paid my bill” is not by itself an answer to the claim. But whether this particular claim, against this establishment, on these facts, holds up is exactly what verification is for.

Understand What You Actually Face

The number in the letter is built to look like your bill. It is not. Two federal statutes set the damages, and they are structured differently.

Under 47 U.S.C. §605, which covers satellite feeds, base statutory damages run from $1,000 to $10,000 per violation, and a court “may increase the award of damages, whether actual or statutory, by an amount of not more than $100,000 for each violation” only when it finds the violation was willful and for commercial advantage. That is where the roughly $110,000 headline comes from, and it is the ceiling the statute allows in the worst case, not the case in front of you. Where a court finds the violator “was not aware and had no reason to believe” the act was a violation, it “may reduce the award of damages to a sum of not less than $250.” Under 47 U.S.C. §553, which covers cable feeds, the damages are calculated for all violations in the aggregate, from $250 to $10,000, with a willful enhancer capped at $50,000 and a floor of $100.

The full architecture, including how §605’s per-violation math differs from §553’s aggregate cap and where the separate copyright system fits, is on the law page. What courts have actually awarded against establishments, as opposed to what letters demand, is assembled on how these cases resolve and what venues really pay.

What This Means for You Understanding the real structure is the point of this step, because it is what keeps you from two opposite mistakes: overpaying a threat that is anchored to a ceiling you will almost certainly never reach, or under-reacting because the claim feels invented. Most establishments that showed a feed on a residential account do owe something. The question is what the real range is, not whether the letter’s headline is the answer, and it is not.

Notify Your Insurer Before You Settle Anything

Before you pay or agree to anything, check whether you are already covered for part of it. Some general-liability policies, and some media or advertising-injury coverages, may respond to a claim like this. Coverage is far from guaranteed, and many policies exclude it, but the only way to know is to read the policy and put the carrier on notice of the claim.

Timing matters here, and it cuts one way: settling or agreeing to pay before you notify the insurer can forfeit coverage you might have had, because most policies require prompt notice and reserve the right to participate in any settlement. Tender the claim first, then decide. Treat this as a real fork in the road, not a formality.

Decide Your Path, and Know When to Bring in Counsel

Once you have preserved your records, checked the claim against your facts, and understood the real exposure, you are in a position to decide how to respond. The honest option set is a short list: settle for a rational amount, challenge the claim where the facts or the signal path are genuinely in your favor, or decline and force the sender to decide whether to file. Which one fits depends on facts specific to you, and that decision, along with what a rational settlement number looks like, is its own analysis rather than something to resolve on a first phone call.

This is also the point where self-help ends and a lawyer earns their fee. You do not need counsel to read a demand letter or to preserve your records, but you generally do want one before you make a substantive response, negotiate a number, or if the letter names you personally. Look for a lawyer who regularly handles signal-piracy or commercial-broadcast defense, not a general business attorney seeing one of these for the first time; the distributors who bring these claims are specialists, and the fit matters. Before hiring, it is fair to ask whether the lawyer has handled §553 or §605 matters, how they charge for a pre-suit demand versus a filed suit, and what outcomes they have seen on facts like yours. The goal is a response that resolves the claim on terms you understand, made with a clear head rather than in the first hour of panic. For how to find, vet, and price that lawyer, see how to find and vet the right lawyer.

Where to Go From Here

• Not sure they even have a case: run the signal-path decoder to test the signal path and the wrong-venue or mistaken-identity branches.
• Want the real numbers behind the threat: read the law page for the damages architecture, and how these cases resolve and what venues pay for what courts actually award.
• Need the whole picture first: start at the overview of a letter or lawsuit over a game you showed.
• Have been served with a lawsuit: go to served with a federal lawsuit and retain counsel who handles signal-piracy defense. A served case is a lawyer’s to run with you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I Call Joe Hand or the Law Firm to Explain My Side?

No, not before you have understood the claim and, ideally, spoken with a lawyer. A demand letter is written by attorneys who litigate these cases, and an explanation offered to be helpful can confirm facts that increase your exposure: that you showed the event, that you charged a cover, how many people were present. Anything you say or write can become part of the record. Work through the steps first, then decide how you want to respond.

Can I Just Ignore the Letter and Hope It Goes Away?

No. Ignoring a demand letter is the move most likely to turn it into a filed lawsuit, and ignoring a lawsuit can lead to a default judgment entered against you without your side being heard. Not reacting feels safe but is the higher-risk path. The better approach is to prepare quietly and respond on the claim’s timeline, not to go silent.

Do I Really Owe $110,000?

Almost certainly not that figure. The roughly $110,000 number is the statutory ceiling under 47 U.S.C. §605: a $10,000 maximum base plus a $100,000 willful enhancer, and only when a court finds the violation was willful and for commercial advantage. The base range starts at $1,000, and an innocent violation can be reduced to as little as $250. Treat the headline as the worst case the statute allows, not as your bill. What courts actually award is a separate question, covered on the page about how these cases resolve.

Should I Delete the Posts or Wipe the Account First?

No. Destroying or altering records that relate to the claim is spoliation, and a court can treat missing evidence as if it would have hurt you, which is often worse than the original showing. Preserve everything as it is: the account and its billing history, any record of the event, signage or promotion, and point-of-sale records for the night. You are not handing them over by keeping them; you are protecting yourself and keeping the ability to test the claim.

Should I Just Pay to Make It Go Away?

Maybe, but not before two steps. First, understand the real exposure, because the demand is anchored to a ceiling most cases never reach. Second, notify your insurer, since paying before you tender the claim can forfeit coverage you might have had. Whether a settlement is the right path, and at what number, is a decision to make with counsel who can see your specific facts, not one to rush in the first week.

Does It Matter Whether the Feed Was Satellite, Cable, or an App?

Yes. Which statute applies turns on the signal path: a satellite feed falls under §605, a cable feed under §553, and the two are structured differently, with §605 running per violation and §553 in the aggregate. Whether the signal-piracy statutes reach an internet-app stream at all is contested in the courts. Even where they may not, a separate copyright claim can still reach a stream, so an app feed is not automatically a clear path. Working out your own signal path is part of testing whether the claim is accurate; the signal-path decoder walks those branches.

The Letter Has the Wrong Name or the Wrong Event. What Do I Do?

Do not ignore it on the assumption it will correct itself. Demand letters are sent in volume, and a wrong business name, a former owner, a different establishment at your address, or an event you did not show are all real possibilities and real issues to raise. Preserve your own records, confirm the facts, and respond correctly rather than staying silent, because silence on a wrong-party letter can still end in a filed suit.