May 29th, 2006
Hollywood sues Cablevision over network DVR
By Chief Gadgeteer, Gizmos for Geeks
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews.
In another example of greed and fear among huge corporations, 4 Hollywood studios and the big 3 television networks sued Cablevision over their plan to launch an on-demand service that could replace the consumer’s TiVo/DVR. So instead of recording stuff to your own home DVR, you would record it to a DVR run by Cablevision on their servers. The studios and networks are crying copyright foul, because Cablevision is copying and retransmitting material that they didn’t license. Hmm… the consumer didn’t ‘license’ it either, did they? To me, this seems like a value-add for Cablevision customers and that’s it. I don’t really see how this particular issue as being one of competition, but isn’t it ironic that in our competiton-driven economy how afraid companies are of just that?
Source: Gizmos for Geeks.
Bob Jones says:
I think the difference here is that the consumer is an end user and doesn’t retransmit the content for profit. Cablevision is providing a value added service but getting paid for it so they actually are violating copyright law by copying and retransmitting unlicensed content while getting paid for it. How the Chief Gadgeteer could miss such an obvious and basic principal of copyright is a bit stunning….
May 30th, 2006 at 7:14 am
Doug Felteau says:
I got the copyright bit alright, but I suppose that the way I see it, the material is still going to be TiVo’ed one way or the other, either by the end-user or the cable provider. But my main gripe was really that instead of the companies sitting down and discussing it, they’ve decided as usual, to head to the courtrooms to settle their disputes.
May 30th, 2006 at 9:27 am