My understanding is that it isn't so much the cable operators as it is the broadcasters that insert advertisements. Yes, cablecos do, but basically the cable operator pays the broadcaster to show their content. The broadcaster sets aside x minutes of time for advertising. Cable company says "whoa, we're paying you to advertise? fuck that.". Broadcaster then offers a portion of the time they've set aside for advertising to the cable operator and all but the consumer is happy!

Are you all forgetting that this is supposed to be wideband and pull from essentially any/all available frequencies between 500mhz and 10 ghz rather than try to rape a single source for all it's worth?

I believe the idea here is to make the payment for them and in the event that TPB was found to not be liable for the damages, everybody that paid will be able to retract their payment at the processing expense of the law firm. Not simply pay and ask for your money back. I could be wrong and it could be THAT exploitable, but that's how I understood it at least.

I have to disagree. The only way to determine the content of the message is to acknowledge it through reading. The typically vague use of subject lines in the corporate workplace don't help this any. If you're compelled to check that mail for any reason other than personal dedication, I think it should be technically be billable. A few posts up made a good point in that hourly workers are paid to work within certain hours and that really should be where it stops. If the worker is felt necessary beyond their normal hours, on-call arrangements need to be established to compensate the employee for these situations.