Judge Stops Countersuit against TiVo

[Chris Walker]

Now we know what the DVR fees collected will be used for.

Man Charlie time to go find yourself better legal council. Your guys are playing worse then the Red Sox!

Yea Charlie needs to fire his entire legal team. The courts definitely hate Charlie and his legal team.

 

[Doa]

tivo = cry baby

This is starting to get redicolous. I've always remeber echostar having there 7100 + 7200 models before tivo even was around, far as if dish had the patent on "dvr" probably not, but far as I remeber dish use to call it a "pvr".

This only really amounts to the fact tivo isn't making the money like they use to, and have to cry about it.

 

[Inno]

...by near future, surely you mean several more years only after E* has pursued all legal possibilities. Does this company ever do anything above board that doesn't take a team of litigators to resolve?

Wasn't Charlie part of the VCII hacking game back before Echostar was even thought of? Does that answer your question?

 

[Chris Walker]

This is starting to get redicolous. I've always remeber echostar having there 7100 + 7200 models before tivo even was around, far as if dish had the patent on "dvr" probably not, but far as I remeber dish use to call it a "pvr".

This only really amounts to the fact tivo isn't making the money like they use to, and have to cry about it.

Yea if anything Tivo copied Dish's PVR/DVR concept.

 

[Stargazer]

If Dish would even try to buy Tivo and if Tivo would even sell out, Directv might try to outbid Dish for Tivo. Looks like Tivo is trying to set an example with Dish since they have sold more DVR's than anybody, why not start with them?

If Dish settles with Tivo and pays them royalties will this lead to DVR price increases? If they raise it on up to $7-8 maybe $10 even then that would be higher than what Directv charges. If it goes up that much then it better be per account and not per DVR. What about those DVR's that were promised to never be charged the DVR fee? That's another issue in itself. Even if they keep it the same they are still more expensive seeing that they charge the per DVR fee while Directv charges one DVR fee per account. That means an increase in the DVR fee would be a double whammy.

 

[boomerang]

My concern is that Charlie will raise our DVR fees.

This fee based system of E*'s is getting under my skin.

 

[Stargazer]

Their DVR fees are already higher than Directv's since they charge by DVR vs. Directv charging a DVR fee per account. That makes their fee double or triple in some cases. Raising the price would make their fees even higher.

 

[Chris Walker]

If Dish would even try to buy Tivo and if Tivo would even sell out, Directv might try to outbid Dish for Tivo. Looks like Tivo is trying to set an example with Dish since they have sold more DVR's than anybody, why not start with them?

If Dish settles with Tivo and pays them royalties will this lead to DVR price increases? If they raise it on up to $7-8 maybe $10 even then that would be higher than what Directv charges. If it goes up that much then it better be per account and not per DVR. What about those DVR's that were promised to never be charged the DVR fee? That's another issue in itself. Even if they keep it the same they are still more expensive seeing that they charge the per DVR fee while Directv charges one DVR fee per account. That means an increase in the DVR fee would be a double whammy.

If I was E*, I'd just keep Tivo tied up in court and bleed them dry financially. They are losing tons of money as is. I am sure that's probably their plan.

 

[Jim5506]

DISH does have that feature. It's called the PocketDISH.

Pocket Dish is to TiVo-to-go as PDA is to Desktop.

 

[Fgsilva]

hmm, is the 30 day period to return and cancel still good??? I just got back to dish as a new customer on 8/5 and if I'm gonna lose the dVR function I don't want it anymore!!!

 

[long_time_DNC]

This is just so stupid. Settle with Tivo already and stop holding us DVR lessees hostage to all the legal wrangling. Either that, or make Tivo a buy-out offer they can't refuse and be done with it.

 

[ClevelandRob]

hmm, is the 30 day period to return and cancel still good??? I just got back to dish as a new customer on 8/5 and if I'm gonna lose the dVR function I don't want it anymore!!!

I'm not a lawyer, but I beleive by them shutting off the DVR service is grounds for anyone to be able to cancel without penalty. I guess I better read my fine print. I just switched to E* 2 months ago. I'd rather pay double the DVR fee than go back to D*!

 

[herdfan]

If Dish settles with Tivo and pays them royalties will this lead to DVR price increases? If they raise it on up to $7-8 maybe $10 even then that would be higher than what Directv charges.

D* pays TiVo about $1 per DVR sub. And that price includes maintenance/upgrades etc. So a pure license should be no more than that, probably less.

 

[SmityWhity]

So if they turn off the DVR functions on the ViP622, then Pocket Dishes would become TV Guide Holders (paper wieghts)?


On the fine print.... Dish doesn't guarrantee any specific and/or number of channels. I guess that means they can terminate all channels but Dish 101 and still be providing you with satisfactory programming!

 

[Stargazer]

Wow, $1 per month, I do not see Dish not settling with Tivo if it came down to only $1 per month per sub. The question is, since Dish charges per DVR instead, will Tivo want the $1 per DVR receiver too? Probably so.

Dish stating that they are working on this fix to prevent it from going against Tivo's patents could be very bad news for us. Is Dish really THAT cheap as to not want to pay Tivo the $1? Why do I have the feeling that Tivo is going to try to get a bit more than that per sub from Dish?

 

[Friend]

Wow, $1 per month, I do not see Dish not settling with Tivo if it came down to only $1 per month per sub. The question is, since Dish charges per DVR instead, will Tivo want the $1 per DVR receiver too? Probably so.

Dish stating that they are working on this fix to prevent it from going against Tivo's patents could be very bad news for us. Is Dish really THAT cheap as to not want to pay Tivo the $1? Why do I have the feeling that Tivo is going to try to get a bit more than that per sub from Dish?

Do you think 1$ is cheap, count it by number of subs. It will be almost 2 million per month (If dish has 2 million customers with DVR)

 

[herdfan]

Do you think 1$ is cheap, count it by number of subs. It will be almost 2 million per month (If dish has 2 million customers with DVR)

D* pays TiVo somewhere in the $3M/mo. range, so yes it is a lot of money. But if I had to guess, TiVo will want those $1 per month retroactive back to when E* began infringing.

I personally think it would be in E*'s best interest to pay a reasonable amount to TiVo to settle provided that E* could get the TiVo software in their DVR's. E* would see a lot of customers come over from D*.

 

[MikeD-C05]

But Dish already is getting 5.00 per dvr on customers now , so what is the big deal with paying Tivo a 1.00 per sub? 2 million per month out of 5 million that they already are making still leaves 3 million a month for a dvr fee that they can charge just because they want to. If Charlie had been smart he would have been putting all those dvr fees over the years into an account that he would have made interest off of and he would have the money for the settlement with Tivo now.

 

[waltinvt]

This is starting to get redicolous. I've always remeber echostar having there 7100 + 7200 models before tivo even was around, far as if dish had the patent on "dvr" probably not, but far as I remeber dish use to call it a "pvr".

Are you sure? I thought TiVo and Replay TV were both out before Dish had any pvr capability.

This only really amounts to the fact tivo isn't making the money like they use to, and have to cry about it.

Well now that "D" has signed back on, their pockets just got deeper.

 

[cebbigh]

Dish really just needs to bite the bullet, settle and get it over with. If they need to charge an extra buck or two per month just do it. The only way I am ever going to switch is if they need to turn off their PVR's. I know there is a snowball's chance of it ever coming to that, but as a subscriber I don't like the uncertainty. And if I were a potential customer looking at options I would be inclined to hold off until all this stuff gets settled.