Another Day, Another Loss For Broadcasters In Quixotic Campaign To Kill Innovation
from the moving-forward dept
Just last week, we noted that a court in NY had rejected an attempt by ABC and CBS to shut down DISH's AutoHopper offering that helps users automatically skip commercials (along with their PrimeTime AnyTime feature that automatically records prime time network TV). That came after a ruling in California in a nearly identical case, this time by Fox and NBC. That case had moved forward and it appears that, yet again, a court has said no to the attempt to get an injunction against DISH. The full decision isn't out yet, but the parties have seen the ruling and it's clear that DISH won, and Fox didn't:"We have just received the ruling, and while the judge found that Fox could prevail at trial on the merits of the case, she did not grant our preliminary injunction," says a Fox in a statement. "We disagree that the harms caused by Dish’s infringing services are completely compensable by damages, and as a result we are looking at all options. We will file a response in due course."While the details matter, it seems pretty clear that (as the court has said before), even if DISH is found to have infringed (though it expresses some skepticism on the likelihood of such an argument working), the court doesn't see any irreparable damages from letting the technology move forward. This is a good thing. All too often, it seems that the copyright maximalist organizations view any possible infringement as "irreparable" harm, even though it's nothing of the sort.
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Filed Under: autohopper, copyright, hopper, primetime anytime
Companies: abc, cbs, dish, fox, nbc
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Clearly they do not need to prove it "irreparable", they only need to claim it to be ... and you need to prove it is not, you can not just say so. This is the way it is done in adult land and if you don't like it they will just take their ball and go home.
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Re: Irreparable?
Let me try:
ir·rep·a·ra·ble
iˈrep(ə)rəbəl/
adjective
1.
(of an injury or loss) impossible to rectify or repair.
"the damage copyright did to OOTB's brain is irreparable!"
Hope that helps clarify.
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Hey, AJ. Since you clearly know what "irreparable" means in this context, and we don't, why don't you explain to us this special meaning of a relatively common word?
Then, care to elaborate on why you think the harm here was irreparable? You clearly think it was or you wouldn't feel the need to ask the question.
Also note that the Court decided there was no irreparable harm, so it'd be interesting to hear why you think they're wrong too.
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I'm not the one writing and publishing articles claiming here that as far as irreparable harm goes, "it's nothing of the sort." Can Mike actually back up his argument, or is this just more faith-based FUD? Hmmm... I wonder.
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Would you care to demonstrate how the harm here was irreparable?
You're the one writing and publishing comments.
Gosh, you're stupid and feeble. It's impossible for me to believe that you think your two one-liners help in any way. In fact, they just show the vacuity of Techdirt fanboys.
By the way, I wrote too quickly about "only one here who can see": the OTHER AC piqued my interest and I'd like to see Mike try to field that "irreparable" bit too. Of course we all know he won't.
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If Mike asserts something, he should prove it. If you assert something, it's just obvious and anyone questioning you is clearly a "Techdirt fanboy." It's impossible to disagree with you without being a dirty pirate criminal because only dirty pirate criminals would disagree with someone who is so clearly right that they shouldn't even be questioned.
Of course we all know you won't actually manage to prove that the harm was irreparable. If high priced lawyers for the entertainment industry can't prove it in court, how will an internet troll whose just looking for attention going to come up with a logical and legally sound argument?
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There is no irreparable harm from giving them the ability to control the way they view content. The content creators can always ask for sponsorship or use product placement to help advertise products. Remember Sony's shout-out in The Spy Who Loved Me? A nice big close-up of the screen with Sony's logo clearly visible.
What I'm saying is, there's no need to force ads on people and it's not infringing to block them or provide a means of blocking them.
I presume the Techdirt trolls watch every ad religiously, from the way they bleat in the comments. Why should we?
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Sounds like verbal diarrhea.
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What - exactly - is faith-based FUD ?
It's probably unique to Techdirt. I'll field it, though doubt will please you:
The "faith" part is blind belief by fanboys that Mike is any sort of expert (his reputation is based solely on the one long-ago quip of "Streisand Effect"); I suppose you know "FUD" is an ancient acronym (originated in 1970's at latest from IBM's strong-arm "marketing" practices warning customers of alleged bad consequences for using another vendor) for Fear - Uncertainty - Dread. -- Here, FUD is evident in Mike's title that packages up vague and over-blown assertions: "Quixotic Campaign To Kill Innovation". So Mike ginning up fanboys with his imaginary vague future worries (and / or hopes for the destruction of copyright) is what the AC means by "faith-based FUD".
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I was not disappointed.
Also, note the lack of supporting evidence to substantiate the claim.
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No, Mike's reputation is most certainly not "based solely" on that, moron.
It's based on 15 years of blog posts that he has signed his name to.
Which about 10,000 times the worth of a chicken shit commenter who won't even register an account at Techdirt because they are afraid of being held to their own words. Face it Blue, you are nothing more than a piece of crud on the bottom of the internet's shoe when it comes to reputation.
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Innovation? I've been skipping commercials since at least 1972!
This has NOTHING to do with copyright, maximalist or any other kind. -- It's about REVENUE, so fairly vital to some. I'll dumb it down for "economists": if people don't watch advertisements, advertisers will quit funding the shows. With me so far?
Now, as I've said several times, the possibility of using "technology" to skip advertisements is one of the most pressing problems on "teh internets". -- Just imagine if everyone used "Noscript" and hosts file to prevent Google from spying on them and targeting ads! Wouldn't that be a good stymy for that amoral spying mega-corporation? Heh, heh. -- BUT there's no one else here who can even see the little picture, and why should I elaborate on anything of interest for piratey ankle-biters who'll just steal my ideas without attribution?
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Yes, but my claim is only that I don't think Mike (a) knows what irreparable harm means, and (b) has any actual argument as to why the alleged harm here is not irreparable. Will he address either point? I doubt it. Sincerely. Mike doesn't do details. Or debates. Or substance.
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As far as I remember AJ was hurt by something Mike Masnick said in person and now he seeks revenge by trying to discredit everything he writes. It is a sad emotional crusade indeed.
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The onus is on Fox and co to prove the irreparable harm not the other way round as it was Fox making the accusation.
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Sounds like verbal diarrhea.
In a sense, it kind of is. It's pretending to reach a legal conclusion based on legal reasoning, while in fact it's based only on one's extreme bias. Mike's specialty.
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Of course he won't. It's Mike. He doesn't back up his legal conclusions with actual legal arguments. We all know that.
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Given it a rest AJ, the condescending attitude might have some merit were you right more often than wrong, but being wrong a good 90-95% of the time and having a condescending, superior attitude is just sad.
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Like a stuck pig
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You must be a young 'un -- because their sobs were heard the next galaxy over.
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average_joe and out_of_the_blue just hate it when due process is enforced.
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Ad skipping is old
OldGeezer said: There were rumors that the advertisers knew we were scanning through [the adverts] so they arranged them to give subliminal messages in the few seconds it took to zip through each ad. I remember it was pointed out that many of them seemed to put each of a 3 or 4 word ad slogan in large letters for seconds at a time so it can still be read at high speed.
Really? Explains my propensity to run around stabbing people while munching LSD-laced popcorn.
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To say the customer has no rights over how they use their service for personal consumption, is something only a Copywrong Minimalist would argue.
The Copywrong Minimalists want their double dip profits. First they dip into the end-user's wallet. Then they dip into the TV advertisers wallet.
Just like the phone companies double dipping the spy agencies wallet and the end-users wallet.
The sad part is, the advertisers wouldn't even know if the customer was skipping their recorded commercials or not.
This leaves only one logical conclusion. It's not really the TV broadcasting companies who care about commercial skipping. It's actually the advertisers putting pressure on the broadcast companies to do something about commercial skipping hardware.
It's too bad these advertising bozos don't realize it's been happening since VCR's came on the market. They should have been trying to sue VCR makers back in the 1980's, instead of waiting until 2013.
What a bunch of morons.
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"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."
That's not the only thing they've tried to stop. Player pianos, radio, MP3 players, etc. The entertainment industry despises anything they didn't think of first and/or cannot 100% fully control.
And the only reason they think that way is due to the arrogance resulting from a government granted monopoly.
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When copyright leads to loss of works, it is irreparable.
Loss through lack of maintenance of the medium or intentionally destroyed.
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The TV networks brought this upon themselves
When auto-skip features become commonplace, they will take the next logical step; Ads that can't be skipped. They will shrink the actual image and puts ads down the side of the screen and across the bottom while the show is on. It sounds crazy now, but so would the idea of popup ads across the bottom of the picture, 20 years ago.
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Re: The TV networks brought this upon themselves
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Listen up Broadcasters....
DISH's service does nothing to infringe in any way shape or form.
The owner has to choose to enable the feature.
All this feature does is *automate* what the owner was already doing.
I for one have *hopped* commercials for years, by recording the shows I want to watch, and pressing "forward" when commercials attacked me with high-volume rhetoric that I was totally uninterested in.
DISH buys your programming, transmits it in FULL to the consumer, who then decides to opt out of your bullshit.
There you have it - DISH doesn't infringe, your case is senseless, baseless and full of what you're shoveling to the courts - SHIT!
So shut the fuck up, and forget about it - you aren't going to win this one, or any other case against it.
Bye-bye, too bad, so sad... go cry to yobama...
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