Studios Forcing ReplayTV to Collect Viewing Info

superposed writes "The San Francisco Chronicle has articles here and here about an ongoing court battle between ReplayTV and several major media organizations. A federal judge has required SonicBlue, makers of ReplayTV, to begin collecting data on how customers use the systems to swap shows and skip commercials, and hand the information over to the studios so they can make a case that copyrights are being infringed. SonicBlue is appealing the ruling, saying that collecting the data would violate their privacy policy. " It seems strange to me how much legal hoopla SonicBlue has been dragged through considering how many of these things they've actually sold. Update: 05/05 14:22 GMT by M : See the previous story as well.

Comments

A new low!

[Karl Cocknozzle]

Instead of making a case of their own, the "content-industry" has conveniently gotten the judge to order the other party to make their case for them.

Sheer genius, but also very depressing. Our legal system is more screwed up than people think. Way more...

Re:A new low!

[cduffy]

Even though this is a civil case, involvement of the courts still implies state action -- that's been established ever since Shelley v. Kramer -- and so the government is still responsible for the constitutionality of their courts' actions in such cases. Discovery is reasonable when it enables each party involved in a suit to requisition data from the other. Not so when innocent 3rd parties are suddenly forced to provide otherwise non-public information without their consent.

[IANAL]

Re:5th amendment?

[aengblom]

The 5th AMendment does not apply here. The 5th Amendment only prevents companies/people from testifying against themselves. This would not be testimony, but evidence.