[Infowarrior] - 9CA: Broadcasters Can't Use Copyright To Block Commercial Skipping

[Richard Forno]

Court Says Broadcasters Can't Use Copyright To Block Commercial Skipping

from the good-court-rulings dept

This morning there was a huge victory for common sense in the Ninth Circuit appeals court ruling in the Fox v. Dish case over Dish's AutoHopper technology. As you may recall, pretty much all the major broadcasters sued Dish a year ago, claiming that its AutoHopper technology with the PrimeTime Anytime feature -- which would record the entire primetime lineup, and allow Dish customers to watch everything (starting the next day) while automatically skipping the commercials -- was infringement (and breach of contract). As we noted at the time, the broadcasters' arguments made very little sense. The basis of the argument was that skipping commercials is a form of copyright infringement. We couldn't see how skipping commercials violated the copyright in any way at all, and while Fox pretended it won the initial ruling at the district court level, the reality was that Dish won big.

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http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130724/10340723925/appeals-court-broadcasters-cant-use-copyright-to-block-commercial-skipping.shtml


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