Cablevision to appeal DVR ruling

[cforrest]

More money to be wasted IMO :down

NEW YORK (AP) - Cablevision (NYSE:CVC) Systems Corp., a New York-area cable TV provider, said Tuesday that it will appeal a federal court ruling that blocked the company's rollout of a next-generation digital video recorder service.

Cablevision told The Associated Press that it will appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals on Tuesday and also seek an expedited review of the case, claiming that the federal court ruling in New York last month misapplied copyright law to its remote-storage digital video recorder, or DVR.

Continued: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070410/cablevision_dvrs.html?.v=2

 

[stck4evr]

Interesting article - and the legal question - are DVRs, VCRs etc legal? They are,
but the studios want to limit the "remote" DVR function.
The problem I guess is who is recording - the Cable company or the user.
Since with DVRs/VCRs it is the USER who is doing the recording,
we get a free pass (since 1984 with BetaMax,etc) to record all we want for own use.
But if it is the cable company doing the recording, then it is not legal...
I can see their point. They cable companies would be recording the content and playing it for someone else...

 

[Sammy033]

They cable companies would be recording the content and playing it for someone else...

In some ways it could be considered public performance. Depending on your definition of public.

 

[LonghornXP]

I don't see how this ruling can be upheld as long as the network DVR service is doing these two things below.

1. Only recording shows that a customer said to record via digital box.
2. Only allowed playback from a box that requested the show be recorded.

Beyond that I don't think it matters if the hard drive is housed in the customers home or at the cable company headends. I'm assuming that customers would in some way pay for this nDVR service so they are paying for the use of a hard drive. I don't consider this any different than a customer paying a monthly fee for the use of a DVR box. Why does it matter that the box is inside the customers home. Now if the cable company is recording each and every show regardless of whether a customer requested it to be recorded that is another story. Also if a recorded show is allowed to be played back by another customer who didn't request the show be recorded that is akin to VOD and should be considered VOD.

Also if the courts consider it illegal because the the show isn't being recorded on the specific box that requested it than I guess all cable company multiroom DVR options would be deemed illegal for these reasons below.

Say you have three HD DVR boxes rented from Comcast and you had multiroom viewing via Moca enabled for an extra charge of 4.95/month.

So you schedule a recording on box A and it records as normal. Now if box B wants to playback that recording that would be no different than a digital box connecting to a remote storage device to allow playback. Again box B never requested that recording so that would be deemed illegal if that box B was allowed to playback said recording on Box A with the current ruling.

Now Time Warners Start Over service is an entire different story as they wanted to record the current show from all channels without a customer requesting it be recorded and allow a customer to go back to the start of the show on any channel. This type of service I consider to be illegal and as such do require contracts with all the content companies who own these channels.

At least this gives you all some food for thought and another view to look at.

 

[TheForce]

I don't have the time to look up exact references but the case is true that fair use of recording of copyrighted material MUST be done by the individual and NUST be for use by his own household. In other words, It has been the ruling of fair use that you cannot supply a service of recording for free or for hire$ for another and be included in the fair use provision. This is how I learned it from my seminars on copyright law. So, if a cable company is granted the pass to time shift for hire it would be an extension for anyone to make recordings for another for hire as well. Again, the current fair use ruiling is that you can make recordings of copyrighted content for use in your own home for anyone in your home, but not for others, even relatives outside your home. Your home use is the key demark ruling of the fair use provision. The cable companies should lose this case unless the courts wish to expand the original ruling to allow agents for hire to make unauthorized recordings, copies of copyrighted work.

 

[jcrash]

no chance they win on appeal. They would be rebroadcasting network content at will without compensating the networks.

 

[LonghornXP]

Also remember that the networks are being paid by that specific customer. The cable company has a contract with those networks. The customer by paying his/her cable bill is paying for that content. The cable company is also paying for that content which is the reason why they charge customers isn't it. The customer still must select the specific show within his/her on screen program guide and press a specific button to record it. I don't think it should make a difference if that hard drive is located at the cable company headend or within a box at the customers home. Also keep in mind that the cable company can limit playback only to digital boxes on the specific customers account.

Now if Tivo did something like this that would be another story as they would need a contract with say HBO to allow recording of HBO. I do believe that the supreme court will consider this specific case as within fair use because both the recording and playback of all content is directly in the hands and control of a paying customer. What I mean by this is that only a paying customer can schedule the recording and said customer can only play the content back on the boxes under his account only. Sorry but I cannot see this as being upheld unless the supreme court judges are in the pocket of the content industry.

 

[jcrash]

Who's paying whom is not the point.

Who is recording and who is playing back is the problem.

While the customer may click "record" on his PVR front-end, he is not recording it, he is just telling someone else to record it for him...at another location. Furthermore, they aren't just recording it for him, they are recording it for every other person that click record on that show.

Fair Use = My Recording at My Location, not Your Recording at My Location or My Recording at Your Location