distributors will require a domestic billing address before issuing a subscription; post boxes and commercial mail receiving agencies are often used by grey-market subscribers to foreign providers to circumvent this restriction. The situation in the US itself differs as it is complicated by the legal question of subscriber access to distant local TV stations. Satellite providers are severely limited in their ability to offer subscriptions to distant locals due to the risk of further lawsuits by local affiliates of the same network in the subscribers home designated market area. California stations have sued satellite providers who distributed New York signals nationally, as the distant stations would have an unfair advantage by broadcasting the same programming three hours earlier. There is also a small "reverse gray market" for Canadian signals, transmitted with a footprint which sends full-strength DBS signals to many if not all of the contiguous 48 US states. This is desirable not only to receive Canadian-only content, but because some US-produced programs air in Canada in advance of their US broadcast. The question of signal substitution, by which Canadian cable and satellite providers substitute the signal of a local or domestic channel over a foreign or distant channel carrying the same program, is rendered more complex by the existence of a reverse grey market. Signal substitution had already been the cause of strong diplomatic protests by the United States, which considers the practice to constitute theft of advertising revenue. The lack of domestic competition for premium movie channels in Canada is one factor encouraging grey-market reception; language is another key issue as most Spanish-language programming in North America is on the US system and most French-language programming is on the Canadian system. A larger selection of sports and ethnic programming is also available to grey-market subscribers. It could be said that the 1000-channel universe is a "reality" in North America, but only for the signal pirates as many legal and geographic restrictions are placed on the ability to subscribe to many if not most of the physically available channels. Other countries such as Nicaragua during Sandinista rule, Cuba, Iran (Islamic Republic of Iran) and Afghanistan during Taliban rule and Iraq during the Saddam Hussein regime, have attempted to prohibit their citizens from receiving any satellite broadcasts from foreign sources. The situation in Europe differs somewhat, due to the much greater linguistic diversity in that region and due to the