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Multiple ReplayTV Lawsuits Dismissed

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the lawsuit-society dept.

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."

1 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's moot. But it will come back. by JamieF · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Oh yay. I can't wait for the day when my PVR channel guide is kept up to date by the same sort of company that prints documentation on a photocopier and deliberately omits their company name, contact info, and even product model number so you can't actually go to them for support. Excellent.

    I've worked at a PVR company on channel guide functionality, and it's not easy. The amount of data for every single show broadcast on every head end in the US is actually fairly large, and obviously it gets updated a lot. I don't think that an open source approach to maintaining a feed of channel guide data will work until / unless PVRs get a LOT more market penetration. (The data becomes obsolete very quickly, and has to be constantly refreshed, unlike software that you just keep building on.) That's why, for the next few years, somebody is going to have to get paid to provide the channel guide info. That might be your cable or satellite provider, though. A good way to get free channel guide info might be to hack your cable or satellite box, or maybe to just create a gadget that reads it right off the cable TV signal.