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.

Filed Under: autohopper, copyright, hopper, primetime anytime
Companies: abc, cbs, dish, fox, nbc