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Multiple ReplayTV Lawsuits Dismissed
bluephone writes "News.com.com.com.com... has article about a federal judge dismissing lawsuits brought by 5 users and the EFF over fears of being sued by media corporations. U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper stated the suits were moot since media companies agreed not to sue users in August 2003. She also pointed out that the suit brought by media companies against ReplayTV has been dismissed as well."
not quite. if the studios ever threaten again, we have this case to point to as precedence.
Not quite. I haven't R'd the FA yet, but I'm betting the cases were dismissed because the plantiffs "Lacked Standing." That's a legal term for "nobody's done anything wrong to you, so get out of my courtroom."
It's one of the more frustrating aspects of our legal system (to me, anyway) -- the inability to pre-emptively decide issues. Instead, you have to wait until you're actually *sued* for something, and then, if the plantiff drops the suit, you may have to go through it all again in the future the next time they decide to rattle your chain.
(Just like the RIAA and watermarking paper).
Now I'll go read the article to see just how wrong I am....
Replay's dead? Then how come they still charge me $10 a month for a service they are still actively providing?
"Derp de derp."
All new Replay units still have the commercial skip functionality. The only difference is that a very tiny bit of user input is now required to access the feature.
The old version used to work auto-magically skipping all the commercials with no user input.
The new version does exactly the same thing, only it requires the user to push a button at the start of every commercial break. Not every commercial mind you, just every 2 to 5+ minute commercial segment. And just one button...
But that one button is enough to make it the previously-automagic feature a "manual" function. And I suppose no one in the entertainment industry thinks such a feature is worth litigating. After all, it's really nothing more than a FFF (fantastic fast forward). Remember, Replay units never deleted commercials, they just made insert points and skipped them in the video stream, you could always go back and watch them if you liked.
Since the new version is little more than a manual FFF, I gather the entertainment industry would have very hard time trying to prove in court that the all-too-similar Fast Forward on VCR's has been illegal all this time.
TiVo has 30-second skip as well, though it's an "easter egg" that requires a sequence of button pushes that isn't in the official docs anywhere. It also disables itself whenever the unit upgrades its OS. Mine did this last week but the 30-sec skip re-enabled with no trouble (once I punched it in right, anyway!).
...
According to at least one TV exec, I'm stealing by doing this because I don't see their ads
i am a soviet space shuttle
Replay is not dead. Replay was bought by a Japanese company that also owns Denon.
I have a couple Replays and the service has continued uninterupted. They are still making and selling Replays.
In short, Replay is not dead.
The 50xx (I have a 5060) still have commercial skip and internet transfer. The 55xx (the current models) don't have it, and probably never will. The lawsuit of the Hollywood studios was dismissed partly because Replay/dnna agreed to drop these features. This lawsuit affects RePlay users who were suing the studios.
I have blog like everyone else
There is a succesful project (XMLTV?) which gets listings data by parsing various public web sites (such as provided by the networks themselves). It's used by MythTV etc. I do however have reservations about using such a system - I can't believe the data quality is as good as (say) Tivo, and it seems a bit of a liberty. The web site providers will get hit for bandwidth as people use it more.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Actually, this had nothing to do with the 30 second QuickSkip, but with ReplayTV's "Commercial Advance" feature that automatically "sensed" commercial breaks, encoded that data along with the recorded show, and then let the viewer optionally "elimintate" (in theory) all commercial breaks. The networks didn't seem too upset that you could skip blocks of time or fast forward--people still sometimes view commercials and even forget to skip. It's the non-interactive, automatic Commercial Advance feature that they were up in arms about.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
You are looking for Gerry, the developer of DVarchive. If you want to get in touch with him, I recommend heading over to the ReplayTV section of the AVSforum. He posts regularly there with updates on the newest DVarchive versions.
While he gives the program away, I seem to remember him preffering to keep the code to himself. Couldn't hurt to ask...