When I was very young, during the early 80s, we had the concept of pirate cable stations. A guy would knock on the door, sign you up (i.e., take a cash payment

When I was very young, during the early 80s, we had the concept of pirate cable stations. A guy would knock on the door, sign you up (i.e., take a cash payment every month). They then put actual cables from building to building, wiring each flat directly. Then they simply broadcast VHS films they rent rented from the video store. They used a Commodore 64 to type in the film list of the day. Because their signal source was directly wired to all of our's we had to wait for them to type in the film list, watch them make mistakes, correct them etc. I don't think anyone thought twice about the dodgy legality of this. It was just a thing everyone did. And it was the 80s. Lots of things were accepted then.