A United States district court has granted Freetech, Inc.’s ("Freetech") motion for a protective order against 17 subpoenas served on Freetech’s distributors by satellite television broadcaster Echostar Satellite LLC ("Echostar"). The subpoenas sought the identity and contact information of each of Freetech’s customers that purchased a Free-to-Air receiver which was capable of being modified to decrypt Echostar’s satellite signals without its authorization. Echostar argued that such contact information would assist it in proving, in the main proceedings, that Freetech violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Communications Act. The court held that the information sought would not help Echostar prove its claims, and that the burden and intrusiveness to Freetech’s customers was too high to justify disclosure, especially in light of alternative methods of sourcing more relevant information.