Struggle against the illegal forms of “sharing” began in the late 20th and early 21st centuries in nearly all European and also many non-European ones, who considered the phenomenon as doubtlessly injurious, among others, for the development of online services based on, or consisting of, the conditional access. The earliest negative assessments of sharing behaviours in Europe date back to 1998, when the European Parliament and Council introduced legal protection of encoded services provided online, approving the 98/84/EC Directive on the legal protection of services based on, or consisting of, conditional access. The implementation of the said directive, in Polish law took place on 5th July 2002 in the form of the act on the protection of some services provided online and based on, or consisting of, conditional access. The goal of the paper is to discuss the practical and theoretical aspects of one of attributes of the offence of sharing, namely an illicit device. The analysis encompasses success of regulations at the European and national levels, and accounts for the judgements of the Supreme Court and European Court of Justice, and especially the ruling in the case C-403/08.