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UPDATE, 2:43 PM: Dish Network is taking the court decision in stride. “Regardless of the venue, we look forward to proceeding with this case,recognizing that it has been 28 years since the Supreme Court’s “Betamax” decision held that a viewer, in the privacy of their home, could record a television show to watch later,” General Counsel R. Stanton Dodge says. “The Court ruled that ‘time-shifting’ constituted a fair use of copyrighted television programming. Those Betamax users could permissibly fast-forward through commercials on recorded shows – just as DVR users do today. Dish will stand behind consumers and their right to skip commercials, something they have been doing since the invention of the remote control.”
PREVIOUS, 1:06 PM: U.S. District Court Judge Laura Swain in New York has ruled that there can be two tracks for the legal battle pitting Dish Network against Fox, CBS, and NBCUniversal. The broadcasters can proceed with their copyright infringement and breach of contract cases against Dish’s Hopper DVR at a U.S. District Court in California. Meanwhile, her court will hear some of Dish’s arguments about whether the AutoHop feature — which jumps past ads in shows recorded off the broadcast networks — simply automates what DVR users already do manually with their remote controls. Fox says that ”as the true victim and plaintiff here” it plans to “move on to the real issue at hand — demonstrating that Dish Network has created and marketed a product with the clear goal of breaching its license with Fox, violating copyrights and destroying the fundamental underpinnings of the broadcast television business — which damages not only Fox and the other major networks, but also the hundreds of local stations around the country. We look forward to trying and winning the case on its merits.” Just hours before the broadcasters filed their suits in May, Dish asked the New York court for a declaratory judgement that says the ad-skipping feature is legal. Swain issued a temporary restraining order on the broadcasters while she weighed which court should get first crack at the case.
Related: Disney’s Bob Iger Defends Ads But Won’t Bash Dish Network’s Auto Hop, Yet: Video
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Sweet.
I fail to see how this violates copyright unless the broadcasters are claiming they own the copyright to the entire stream (commercials, shows, etc), which they don’t. I expect they’ll lose that argument.
People just don’t get it. Copyright means that you cannot retransmit or affix on any tangible means (CD, DVD, tape, paper, hard drive, flash, even “nothing yet invented”) without expressly written consent by the copyright owner. If copyright owners wanted, they can have encrypted loops that just repeat a digital pattern over and over and nothing would be able to be copied digitally. Try copying “Platoon” (more than once) and watch your DVD recorder copy a Feedback loop over and over. Its called Digital Rights Management. We are are a crossroads where Digital info will not be public domain anymore. 50 years from now, this coming period will be called “the Really Dark Ages”.
If profits from television affect you at all this is your battle as well… With that I say down with the ad zapper…!
The “fundamental underpinnings of the broadcast television business”? This might have meant something back in the 20th century, but I’m having a hard time mustering any tears for the nets now.
When do cable/satellite customers get to seek redress for paying (increasingly ridiculous) rates for content that’s over one-quarter advertising?
My redress: cut the cord, switch to Netflix/Roku. Guaranteed ad-free viewing (eventually) at bargain basement rates with very broad library. The “eventually” part is the kicker.
Here’s my solution:
Clearly, there is a market for ad-free TV viewing, across the board – not just HBO/Showtime etc. Currently the only way I know to accomplish this in a single source is via Netflix + Roku + immense patience + being willing to DVD the stuff that Netflix can’t get streaming rights to.
So, Dish is trying to serve a legitimate, unmet market need. Good for them. But if content producers object to them undermining their business model, that just tells me that Dish needs to compensate the content producers for their lost ad revenue. I don’t know what that dollar figure is, but it exists. And Dish of course would have to raise their rates but if they’re offering a unique service that satisfies an unmet need, some number of subscribers may be willing to pay it. Dish could put it on another tier, above their vanilla tier that does not have AutoHop.
In other words, Dish is the Netflix/Roku/patience of a saint system, but without the necessity of patience. People are paying for faster delivery of a deep content library without ads.
Now why wouldn’t that work?
If Dish wins the lawsuit, that’s likely to happen. Dish wins, networks increase their rates when contracts expire, Dish passes rate hikes onto customers or drops even more channels.
If autohoppers want to autoskip commercials, they will pay a premium one way or another.
Unfortunately Dish subscribers are the losers anyway this plays out. Either they pay more, lose functionality or lose more channels.
Dish is already #2, and now that they have removed AMC which includes Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men, they will be lucky if they are not run out of the market. This is one more attempt to line their pockets and screw their customers.
Dish is not the culprit, It is Echostar (the company that retransmits provider signals and produces Sat decoder boxes). It so happens that Charlie Ergen is chairman of both Dish Network and Echostar. They can’t win this one! That’s why I sold all my 11,000 shares of Dish. The public has been confused by the media. All Dish has to say to Fox is “you are suing the wrong company”. We have nothing to due with the issues you are litigating. But, I didn’t want to take that chance.
You know who the big winner here is? Apple.
The writing is on the wall for the broadcast networks: Technology has made it so that no one has to watch TV commercials anymore, therefore TV commercials are going away. They can fight, they can stall, the can sue… But they can’t stop it. Apple should be able to use it as leverage it to finally offer individual channels subscriptions ala carte through their iTunes store.
On the day that does happen, Time Warner Cable will quickly become Time Warner Internet.
Yes, or to be more precise, watching ads vs not watching ads should be optional. Obviously, the lost revenue from not watching ads needs to be made up for, so the whole fiscal picture still works. That means not watching ads is simply going to be on a higher tier than watching ads. People can decide for themselves whether it’s worth paying more for not watching ads.
Apple already does this with iTunes of course. You can opt to not watch ads and pay for each episode you watch, directly. The cable and satellite companies simply need to start offering the iTunes model, and mollify the content producers by sharing the revenue with them. This means they must place not watching ads on a higher tier, but since people already are okay with that via iTunes, why not via cable or satellite?
I think the broadcasters and networks brought this on themselves due to their increasing proliferation of ads and promos, now approaching/averaging 19 minutes an hour. That’s unconscionable. As one poster noted here last week regarding NBC’s dumping Ann Curry from TODAY, he/she counted 16 commercials in one particular break. That makes clutter a really dirty word. The long-time industry standard 52-minute hour (with approximately one minute of advertising each quarter hour and two minutes on the hour and half hour) of the 1950s and ’60s seems like a Utopia compared to what one (viewers and content providers alike) endures today. I can’t imagine watching now without the fast-forward feature or a Hopper-type system. Or simply waiting for a show’s on-line or DVD options. Go Dish.
Why don’t the networks not accept TV ads from DISH? If DISH wants consumers to be able to fast forward through ads easily, they should save them the money from being advertisers.
I’d be happy if the hopper required a single click to hop over current ads, both wins if I’m lazy have more time not to click, so in a passive ‘ad-viewing mode’ would be more receptive to the ads but if I really want to skip past minutes of ads to finish watching a show those ads are just being unwelcome.
What networks need to do is in show product placement like many popular new shows on SyFy channel does. Can’t skip an AD that way.