Plaintiffs’ exclusive reproduction rights under section 106 of the Copyright Act,īut this makes no sense. Plaintiff’s prime-time shows and use the Hopper’s Auto Hop feature toĪutomatically skip commercials otherwise contained in those recordings infringe Users of the Hopper’s PrimeTime AnyTime feature who record They do this in the sections on “inducement,” wherein they suggest that, even if DISH doesn’t directly infringe, it is is inducing infringement by offering the auto commercial skip feature to users. Where the filings go really off the wall is in basically saying that skipping commercials is infringement. Is it really that different that it takes one button rather than punching in a few shows? That would be extraordinary - but these filings are full of such extraordinary claims. With the DISH offering, the subscriber is still the one pushing the button and asking the DVR to record the shows. As the Cablevision case concerning a “remote DVR” offered by the service provider showed, if the actions are at the request of the consumer, then it’s the consumer making the call. Beyond being a meaningless distinction, it’s also not true. ![]() The networks are claiming that this is not the same thing, because the “copies” aren’t being made by the user, but by DISH itself for use by the user. That’s a rather stunning claim, and a direct challenge to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Betamax case, which made it clear that time-shifting is legal. Fox first argues that merely recording the entire prime time lineup is making “bootleg” copies of the videos. Update: NBC filing is added below, and is nearly identical to the CBS filing, down to the very same lawyers. I haven’t yet seen the NBC filing, but the Fox and CBS filings both make this same basic argument. ![]() What’s scary, however, is that the TV networks appear to be using this lawsuit to claim that skipping commercials is copyright infringement. I would imagine that all of the cases will be consolidated in one of the courts. At about the same time, DISH itself filed for declaratory judgment in New York against those three, and ABC, who hasn’t yet filed suit, but perhaps will shortly. Though, the legal arguments are insane.Īs you may have heard by now, Fox, CBS and NBC Universal have all sued DISH in California. It wasn’t a surprise that the TV networks didn’t like this at all, but could they really make a legal argument that skipping commercials was against the law? We’ve all heard the story of former Turner Broadcasting exec Jamie Kellner claiming that not watching commercials was “theft,” but do the networks actually think there’s a legal basis for such claims? Okay, we had expected the TV networks to possibly take legal action against DISH Networks for its new Auto Hopper technology, which allows DISH subscribers who use the Hopper feature (which records all prime time shows from the four major networks) to autoskip commercials, if they watch shows in the days after they originally air. ![]() Fri, May 25th 2012 06:42am - Mike Masnick
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