RSSCablevision Loses Remote DV-R Fight with Studios
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published March 23, 2007, 2:47 PM
US cable service provider Cablevision Systems was handed a defeat yesterday in its defense against a lawsuit by three broadcast TV networks, two cable TV networks, and four TV production studios. Cablevision had announced its intention in March 2006 to roll out a kind of off-site DV-R service to subscribers, allowing them to record up to 45 hours of programming for a limited time onto storage devices that are housed at the Cablevision headend instead of households.
Cablevision had planned for a test deployment of what it called Remote Storage Digital Video Recorder (RS-DVR) service to two million charter subscribers on Long Island, New York last spring. But in May, the lawsuit brought by 20th Century-Fox, Paramount, Disney, and Universal; by CBS, ABC, and NBC; and by Cartoon Network and CNN, put that rollout on hold.
The studios' and networks' contention was that Cablevision's offsite DV-R was actually an unauthorized video-on-demand service which, without the direct intervention of the studios, constituted a violation of copyright.
The Motion Picture Association of America backed the studios' efforts. "Unlike with a set-top box," an MPAA spokesperson told USA Today at the time, "Cablevision will copy copyrighted content and retransmit it without authorization. Cablevision's refusal to seek a license has left the plaintiffs no option but to sue." The same spokesperson argued to Reuters that Cablevision "can't establish a for-profit, on-demand service without authorization from copyright owners whose content is used on that service."
US District Court Judge Denny Chin evidently agreed. As cited by Multichannel News this morning, Chin wrote yesterday, "I conclude that Cablevision, and not just its customers, would be engaging in unauthorized reproductions and transmissions of plaintiffs' copyrighted programs under the RS-DVR. Indeed, the RS-DVR is not a stand-alone machine that sits on top of a television Rather, it is a complex system that involves an ongoing relationship between Cablevision and its customers, payment of monthly fees by the customers to Cablevision, ownership of the equipment remaining with Cablevision, the use of numerous computers and other equipment located in Cablevision's private facilities and the ongoing maintenance of the system by Cablevision personnel."
The crux of the studios' argument concerns what are called retransmission rights. Local broadcasters and cable providers are barred from being able to transmit any taped programming from a network source without permission. Sometimes, blanket permission is granted in advance to local stations, for clips used in news programs. But an affiliate station can't just show and re-show a program on its own schedule, any time it wants.
Of course, Cablevision isn't exactly an affiliate station - in a sense, it's a kind of utility service whose principal CATV spectrum services multiple program feeds simultaneously. But under the law, Cablevision and other CATVs such as Comcast (which had voiced its support for Cablevision) are bound by similar retransmission agreements as for local broadcast stations.
Cablevision fought back nonetheless, countersuing the studios and arguing that it wasn't really retransmitting content as though it were rebroadcasting it to the multitude. Rather, it argued RS-DVR was merely lengthening the distance between the consumer and the DV-R he would have had anyway, in order to reduce the cost of DV-R service to that customer, as well as to ensure full-time management of the service.
"To play back programs recorded with RS-DVR," read Cablevision's June countersuit, "customers will still retrieve from their own dedicated computer memory their own unique copies that they have recorded themselves. And, just as with traditional set-top storage DVRs, programs that customers record using RS-DVR will be accessible and viewable only in the customer's home."
But apparently Judge Chin didn't buy that argument. Yesterday, he dismissed Cablevision's countersuit, and gave the plaintiffs seven days to submit their case for monetary damages. Cablevision is now enjoined from "engaging in public performance of plaintiffs' copyrighted works unless it obtains licenses to do so."
Barring the fair use ramifications...
This is a good thing as local devices work better anyway.
On my Comcast cable any streaming video service like "On Demand" (Now reframed as CH1) really suck. Constant video stuttering and pixilation along with audio dropouts. Forget about streaming a movie in HD it just does not work for more that a couple minutes at a time.
I have had Comcast out on several occasions. They have replaces ever bit of cable in my house and checked signal levels, all are well within specifications. They have replaced the box three times. The problem is on their streaming server or network congestion.
Score: 0
|Barring the fair use ramifications...
You guys keep bringing this up and still have yet to mention what Fair Use has to do with *any* of this...
More proof that most of the folks who jump in screaming "Fair Use" have absolutely no clue what they're talking about.
Score: 0
|I'm sure they have a decent model here for remote DVR. The only problem is that they didn't get permission from the content creators first.
I'm sure a deal can be made (likely with another copmpany, since cablevision seems to have blown off both of it's feet in this case) that would not only make this feasable, but possibly improve on it.
Score: 0
|I don't see what the fuss is about, IF it is the case that the recipient has full control. Doesn't sound any different than internet hosting services caching popular pages.
Score: 0
|"Cablevision will copy copyrighted content and retransmit it without authorization."
Pretty simple statement.
They are not debating that you cannot do this for your own use. They are saying that another commercial entity cannot do it for their financial gain.
This is not 'fair use' as some claim, and this is not restricting your personal rights to do this on a DVR as others who cannot read for meaning claim.
This is aimed at a 3rd party commercial entity who does so for their own financial gain.
And to think that the Producers and Owners of material seek to determine the rules for the use and distribution of Their material.
Yup, some Consumers have decided that they should be the ones to decide how this material is distributed.
Let's see: Consumers have the right to refuse to view the content. They have the right to refuse to consume said material and to go elsewhere. Consumers have the right to not support the owners of the material in any manner with their business if they do not agree to the EULA.
Consumers do not have a right to dictate to the owners of said material what the owners can do with their own material.
"Gee whiz, you only own your car. What makes you think that you can tell me if I may use it and when I may use it. And if you allow me to use it, what makes you think that you can tell me where I can go in it or who I can subsequently lend it to?"
Sounds like a whiny @ass teenage rant to me. But then all the world is owed to teenage HS & college kids (and to some adults with the mentality of the 'entitled set') who offer nothing but lip service.
Score: 0
|They are saying that another commercial entity cannot do it for their financial gain.
Bingo. It's the same reason Circuit City was not allowed to offer format s***ing services for iPods.
Well, at least we can agree on one issue, eh? :p
Score: 0
|Score: 0
|The problem with this ruling is that it essentially doesn't address the real issue, namely the content creators (Hollywood, the MPAA, the RIAA) wanting to restrict even further the ability of the end user (you) on what you can do with content.
Take for instance Cablevision's system. The idea was that instead of having content saved on a local drive, it would be saved by Cablevision and sent down the cable system to you AFTER you've set up the request. In other words, Cablevision wasn't just recording everything, it was recording only the programs the user asked for and wanted. BUT (and this is where life gets nasty) the content creators/MPAA/RIAA view that as copyright theft. They view it the same whether it's a remote storage, your own Tivo/iTV/Slingbox, or your own DVR/VCR/cassette player. Boiled down to the essentials, they don't want you to copy anything.
Fast forward a few years now. You've got a DVR that can fit in your pocket, the size of an iPod with it's own screen, and can hold 80 hours of video on solid-state flash memory. But as long as Hollywood/MPAA/RIAA keep demanding and dictating, you're not going to be able to view anything on it as everything you do is illegal. Timeshifting? Illegal. Backup a copy? Illegal. Format s***? Illegal. (Any bets on when they try to push lock-in of HD-DVD/Blu-ray to the player, so you can't take it to another machine and play that disc? Don't think they won't try...)
Score: 0
|namely the content creators (Hollywood, the MPAA, the RIAA) wanting to restrict even further the ability of the end user (you) on what you can do with THEIRcontent.
...fixed that for ya.
Why should anyone else be able to do anything to content other than what the creators of that content have licensed them to do?
Boiled down to the essentials, they don't want you to copy anything.
Wrong. They don't want people (Cablevision) selling or distributing their content without permission. Don't try to make this anything more than what it is, a company trying to profit from another persons hard work without permission or compensation.
Score: 0
|What has happened to this great country?
Big greedy corps can strong arm innovation right out the window. And who suffers? Not the big corp. Its the consumers.
Thanks for screwing us over again.
Score: 0
|Innovation?
We can *do* this in our own homes, right now. This isn't the slightest bit innovative.
It *is* corporate greed, though not in the way you make it out to be...
It's the greed of folks like Cablevision who want to make an extra buck off of the content creators and uninformed consumers, believing they can do so without license, permission, or even dinner and a movie.
Score: 0
|This is ridiculous. Most that have been in the field of Law for 20+ years have no clue about technology. This also applies to Senate, Congress, etc. We might as well let the lobbyists run the country.
Reopen the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA)!
Score: 0
|"We might as well let the lobbyists run the country"
They have been for the last 7 years.
Score: 0
|Make that 15+
Score: 0
|Well that pretty much pins your age down.
Score: 0
|Bye bye, fair use. It was good knowing you. When you're gone, say hello to the Fourth Amendment, as well. Fourth left a while ago...
Score: 0
|What does this have to do with Fair Use?
Fair use has been interpreted to protect personal backups, certain derivatives, and use of "clips" for education and research.
How would this fall into *any* of those categories?
If they messed with *our* ability to record (ala Broadcast Flag), then you might actually be on to something, but this isn't even personal recording. It's someone selling someone else's work to you without paying the license fees.
Score: 0
|Exactly. And if Cablevision had say, just given this away as a perk, the decision might've been different...maybe the suit would've been dismissed from the get go....maybe the plaintiffs wouldn't've even sued.
Score: 0
|that's an awful lot of maybe's. :p
Score: 0
|wink.
Score: 0
|