Cox Loses Lawsuit Saying Cable Box Fees Violate Antitrust Law

[Poke]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/...g-Cable-Box-Fees-Violate-Antitrust-Law-135515

Back in 2012, we noted how Cox Communications was sued by a customer tired of paying cable set top box fees. The suit claimed Cox was violating antitrust laws by forcing customers to pay a fee to rent the boxes instead of letting them buy their own, resulting in countless thousands being paid for devices worth nowhere near that much. The suit also accused Cox of exaggerating the disadvantages of third party boxes and making the use of cableCARDs unnecessarily difficult to deter adoption.

 

[harshness]

Given the very specific language of the FCC rules on the topic, the decision seems to have been pretty clearly spelled out.

 

[navychop]

What does "... motion for a judgment as a matter of law, something the Judge has yet to ..." mean?

 

[Troch77]

Doesn't Directv and Dish do the same thing with their "lease" fee?

 

[harshness]

What does "... motion for a judgment as a matter of law, something the Judge has yet to ..." mean?

Wikipedia can be your friend:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_as_a_matter_of_law

I admit that it isn't what I expected.

 

[harshness]

Doesn't Directv and Dish do the same thing with their "lease" fee?

The rules apply only to cable at this point in time and were developed under the false premise that CableCard would work for everyone in the cable business.

It is notable that neither AT&T nor DISH call the fee a "lease" or "rental" any more. AT&T calls it a TV fee and DISH calls it a Receiver Fee.