Dish beats Fox Again

[Scott Greczkowski]

DISH Applauds Decision Allowing Consumers to Continue to Enjoy Place-Shifting Technology



ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The United States District Court, Central District of California, today denied a preliminary injunction motion filed by Fox Broadcasting Company seeking to block two place-shifting features found on DISH's Hopper® Whole-Home DVR platform: DISH AnywhereTM and Hopper TransfersTM.

The following statement can be attributed to DISH Executive Vice President and General Counsel, R. Stanton Dodge:



"Today's decision is the fourth in a string of victories for consumers related to our Hopper® Whole-Home DVR platform. DISH is pleased that the Court has sided again with consumer choice and control by rejecting Fox's efforts to deny our customers' access to the DISH Anywhere and Hopper Transfers features. We will continue to vigorously defend consumers' right to choice and control over their viewing experience."

DISH Anywhere, using Sling technology built into DISH's Hopper with Sling® Whole-Home DVR, provides a DISH customer, once they receive a television signal in their home, the capability to remotely view that signal from a single Internet-connected device (mobile phone, tablet or PC). Sling technology has been available since 2005 and this motion was the first of its kind in seven years.

With the Hopper Transfers feature, a DISH customer can move or duplicate certain Hopper DVR recordings made by the customer to an iPad; and unlike DISH Anywhere, no Internet connection is needed for viewing.


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[Scott Greczkowski]

"Today's decision is the fourth in a string of victories for consumers related to our Hopper® Whole-Home DVR platform. DISH is pleased that the Court has sided again with consumer choice and control by rejecting Fox's efforts to deny our customers' access to the DISH Anywhere and Hopper Transfers features. We will continue to vigorously defend consumers' right to choice and control over their viewing experience."

DISH Anywhere, using Sling technology built into DISH's Hopper with Sling® Whole-Home DVR, provides a DISH customer, once they receive a television signal in their home, the capability to remotely view that signal from a single Internet-connected device (mobile phone, tablet or PC). Sling technology has been available since 2005 and this motion was the first of its kind in seven years.

With the Hopper Transfers feature, a DISH customer can move or duplicate certain Hopper DVR recordings made by the customer to an iPad; and unlike DISH Anywhere, no Internet connection is needed for viewing.


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[AKGolf]

Nice.

Nice.

 

[Sean Mota]

Fox likes to take beatings... throw in the towel and rethink the tv view model. Technology will keep changing and they will be left behind the curve.

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[Darrell S]

I guess the networks will take this to the Supreme Court to try to win this. It's great that Dish has put together a winning streak in the courts. Did the networks try this when DVRs were first invented? I can't remember.

 

[Teehar]

Charlie is on a major winning streak right now!

 

[satjay]

Yes someone needs to throw in the towel with these networks

 

[JM42]

I guess the networks will take this to the Supreme Court to try to win this

We need to see how the real cases end up first.

It's important to remember all these decisions against an injunction don't really mean a lot. For an injunction, the networks really need to show they will suffer irreparable harm while the case goes on. That's a pretty high bar.

I don't want to minimize the wins, but don't read too much into it, the odds were always in Dish's favor in this phase.

 

[Derwin0]

I guess the networks will take this to the Supreme Court to try to win this. It's great that Dish has put together a winning streak in the courts. Did the networks try this when DVRs were first invented? I can't remember.

They did when VCR's were invented. Supreme court ruled against them in the Sony lawsuit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc.

 

[foghorn2]

Go Charlie! I usually don't root for a CEO or corporations, but gotta give them credit for being punk rockers in a country music world.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Maybe Charlie should hook up the Supreme Court with some free hoppers and free programming if the networks take it up that far . It might just sway their votes once they see how auto skip and ptat works for them.

 

[dare2be]

Maybe Charlie should hook up the Supreme Court with some free hoppers and free programming if the networks take it up that far . It might just sway their votes once they see how auto skip and ptat works for them.

All in the name of due diligence. :up

 

[Teehar]

Maybe Charlie should hook up the Supreme Court with some free hoppers and free programming if the networks take it up that far . It might just sway their votes once they see how auto skip and ptat works for them.

Now your on to something.Might as well hook up the senate and congress too.The broadcasters would die if that happened.

 

[21st Hermit]

With the Hopper Transfers feature, a DISH customer can move or duplicate certain Hopper DVR recordings made by the customer to an iPad; and unlike DISH Anywhere, no Internet connection is needed for viewing.

What are the limitations? Also, only iPad, not Android?

From this page "Requires a broadband connected Hopper with Sling; only available on iPad. Select DVR recordings cannot be transferred." The internet connection seems to not agree with the above.

 

[dangue]

We need to see how the real cases end up first.

It's important to remember all these decisions against an injunction don't really mean a lot. For an injunction, the networks really need to show they will suffer irreparable harm while the case goes on. That's a pretty high bar.

I don't want to minimize the wins, but don't read too much into it, the odds were always in Dish's favor in this phase.

That's not quite right. Irreparable harm with minimal reasonable chance of winning will result in injunction, but so will much reduced harm coupled with a high likelihood of prevailing on the merits of the case. So if the courts thought this was a slam dunk for the networks, they could issue the injunction without a showing of irreparable harm.

Aside from that, I agree, it's early days and no where near a "win" in the sense that is being shared here.

 

[Tyralak]

What are the limitations? Also, only iPad, not Android?

From this page "Requires a broadband connected Hopper with Sling; only available on iPad. Select DVR recordings cannot be transferred." The internet connection seems to not agree with the above.

An Android app is in the works.

 

[JM42]

So if the courts thought this was a slam dunk for the networks, they could issue the injunction without a showing of irreparable harm.

Aside from that, I agree, it's early days and no where near a "win" in the sense that is being shared here.

Yes I over simplified a little, but the point stands - the odds were always in Dish's favor in this phase. This is just setting the stage for the real trial.

With the split jurisdiction aspects, a judge would probably need to be 110% sure the nets would win on all points before granting an injunction.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

From this page "Requires a broadband connected Hopper with Sling; only available on iPad. Select DVR recordings cannot be transferred." The internet connection seems to not agree with the above.

It requires broadband as it transfers from the Hopper to your iPad via Wifi. If you don't have WIFI then its not going to work.

 

[LASooner]

Why focus on the Hopper and not the Sling technology as a whole? They're clearly upset this will allow people to bypass using their online stuff on Fox.com, so why focus on this one device?

 

[GaryPen]

Why focus on the Hopper and not the Sling technology as a whole? They're clearly upset this will allow people to bypass using their online stuff on Fox.com, so why focus on this one device?

Networks already tried to stop Sling, well before Dish acquired the company.
They lost that one, too. So, I doubt if they'll get very far trying to stop what is basically the same thing.