Cablevision Sued Over Remote DVR Plan

zoobid writes "NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox have joined together and filed an injunction against Cablevision over their plan to introduce remote DVRs to their customers. 'They argue that while precedent may allow for legal time-shifting among home TV viewers, Cablevision's plans should require a special license from the broadcasters.' Cablevision's plan to create a centrally-hosted DVR was previously covered here on Slashdot."

Cable DVR?

[pilgrim23]

I view televison via an Eyehome (www.elgato.com) connected to my G5 (with like a zillion external firewire drives attached to it; Who said cheap storage was a good idea?) As to content; that was why God invented Bittoerent.

They might have a real complain this time.

[TubeSteak]

While it may seem like playing at semantics, I think they might have a legitimate gripe this time around.

CableVision is literally rebroadcasting their content, which is a major shift from the previous model of 'consumer records it at home'.

Currently, if you want to re-broadcast a show, you have to pay for it. If CableVision goes through with this, it'll seriously dilute the market (in CableVision areas) for re-runs.

This actually raises a pretty funny point

[grasshoppa]

So there I was, with all the hardware necessary for a MythTV box. I thought, "What fun, I can record anything I want, whenever I want, and play it back on my own time". So I set down and got to work. Couple days later, I had it all hooked up to the TV.

And what do I find? There's nothing on TV to watch. I literally spent the afternoon/evening looking for something, anything to record. I still can't find anything worth the harddrive space.

So, I accepted defeat, set it up to record Dora the Explorer and Sesame street ( 2 year old daughter ), and started putting my DVD isos on the harddrive. Might as well savage some use out of it.

Re:No doubt.

[IAmTheDave]

This is an interesting balance. I am as anti-**AA as they come, but in the end, the people that make/produce the content DO need a revenue stream.

This is, of course, the industry shooting itself in the foot. This sort of on-demand access has been the handwriting-on-the-wall for years now. Instead of redeveloping their marketing and ad revenue schemes to prepare for the inevitable, they've tried to ignore its coming and - now that it's here - sue it back out of existance.

This is of course the classic case. Why adopt when you can injunct? Unfortunately, we're stuck relying on people like Steve Jobs to drag industry kicking and screaming into the future. I guess Cablevision is doing some of the dragging now...

Re:This actually raises a pretty funny point

[IAmTheDave]

And what do I find? There's nothing on TV to watch. I literally spent the afternoon/evening looking for something, anything to record. I still can't find anything worth the harddrive space.

While a lot of TV is trash, try concentrating your search on The History Channel and The Discovery Channel. The plethora of educational content is amazing. Try checking out this coming Monday at... 9ish? History Channel is running a special about George Washington's military life called Washington the Warrior [historychannel.com].

I get that some people don't like TV, but this is education about your country's founding, it's wars and triumphs, etc.

To me, this is great TV no matter who you are. But that's just MHO. ;)

Re:A dying industry lashing out...

[Suidae]

End viewers are not the Networks' customer. Large ad firms are their customer.

Who cares about networks? I like HBO's model. I pay them, I get good, commercial-free programming that I can watch purely on-demand, any show, any time I want it, thanks to the Cox network. If I want a copy of a show, I record it locally and write it off to DVDR.