James Delahunty
23 Mar 2007 22:54
Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan has ruled in favor of several Hollywood studios and television networks in the case over Cablevision Systems Corp.'s plan to create a network-based digital video recorder for its customers. Several Hollywood studios and television networks owned by Time Warner, Walt Disney Co., CBS and News Corp. claimed that Cablevision's plan would breach U.S. copyright laws.
The Remote Storage DVR, or RS-DVR, would have meant Cablevision wouldn't have to install hundreds of thousands of digital set-top boxes in subscribers' homes. The company has already installed more than 500,000 set-top boxes in customers' homes, and the planned RS-DVR would have saved the company a substantial amount from administration and maintenance costs.
While other cable operators had supported the idea for the system, the judge sided with Hollywood, finding that Cablevision storing recorded programs on their servers for their customers would break copyright agreements with content providers. "The RS-DVR is clearly a service, and I hold that in providing this service, it is Cablevision that does the copying," Chin said in his ruling.
He dismissed a counterclaim by Cablevision, which argued that the technology was no different than digital video recorders in a living room. "The RS-DVR is not a stand-alone machine that sits on top of a television," Chin said. "Rather, it is a complex system that involves an ongoing relationship between Cablevision and its customers."
Source:
Reuters