Cablevision sued over DVR

Cablevision customer with a DVR?  Read carefully.

The AP is reporting that Cablevision has been sued by a group of Hollywood content providers, both TV and movie companies, over a new VoD service whereby Cablevision would host the content, vs. having the content kept on the users machine.

Typical DVR's record television programs on a hard drive and allow viewers to replay the programs at any time.

The network DVR proposed by Cablevision would allow viewers to choose which programs they want to record. But instead of recording on a hard drive at home, the cable company would record the programs on a central computer, then allow viewers to watch them later.

Studios contend that the law gives consumers the right to shift the use of their time, but it does not give that right to companies that license the content only for simultaneous broadcast, meaning that to store the programs and offer them on demand for a fee, companies must obtain a separate license.

This will be an important lawsuit wrt VoD services in general so let's keep an eye on it.

Studios Sue Cablevision Over New Service - New York Times (registration free link)

Comments

[roymond]

Similar to the MP3 suit where the music industry put them out of business for allowing customers to stream music in their CD collection from a central server. A big difference was that users could log in from anywhere to listen to their music. It doesn't seem that one can log into their Comcast account to view recorded programming from another location.