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."

Comments

This just in...

[NightSpots]

Small consumers powerless against large corporations. Film at 11.

Re:This just in...

[dschuetz]

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....

Re:This just in...

[jonblaze]

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."

I'll add another "not quite." Although mootness is sometimes thought of as the requirement that the plaintiff maintain standing throughtout the course of the litigation, mootness really goes to whether the court's resolution of the claim in the plaintiff's favor will provide effective relief. Because the copyright owners have entered into a covenant not to sue, a declaratory judgment in the plaintiffs' favor does nothing.

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.

And another "not quite." In the criminal context, under Steffel v. Thompson, if there is no state prosecution pending against you, you may always seek a declaration in federal court that one would be unconstitutional if so brought. But, the plaintiff must demonstrate that there is a "genuine threat of enforcement." I'm pretty sure that declaratory judgments are also available in the civil context as the court did not question the propriety of declaratory relief but rather the procedural requirement of (lack of) mootness.

It's moot. But it will come back.

[Animats]

That's probably the correct decision. It's a case brought by owners of a dead product produced by a defunct company against a third party unlikely to sue them. But it will come back when low-cost PVRs that don't require a subscription service start appearing from China.

Re:It's moot. But it will come back.

[NanoGator]

Replay's dead? Then how come they still charge me $10 a month for a service they are still actively providing?

Re:It's moot. But it will come back.

[JamieF]

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.

Article Summary

[GoodNicsTken]

1. Hollywood firms equate skipping commercials to stealing TV 2. Sue Sonic Blue into Bankrupcy 3. Sonic Blue is forced to sell of the business unit 4. New company disables the features 5. Hollywood drops suit so they can use the same tatic against the next firm that dares give consumers fair use rights over content they have paid for. 6. .... (Any Manufactures in China want to step up? )

No real problem

[CelticWhisper]

OK, if I read right, the article stated that there were no grounds for the suit because the entertainment studios had pledged not to sue over commercial skipping and sharing, and have so far upheld their promise.

So it seems to me that no real harm has been done here, despite the knee-jerk reaction to view any EFF endeavours being shot down as a bad thing.

At least it's good to see that the studios have actually been behaving themselves. And honestly, is the commercial-skipping and file-sharing going to hurt them all that much? So far I get the impression that ReplayTV/TiVo/insert-DVR-of-choice-here is still something of a niche market. At least far more so than PCs, which are far more "dangerous" in terms of piracy, now are.

Fast Forward isn't illegal, just Auto Fast Forward

[Mal Reynolds]

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.

Re:Fast Forward isn't illegal, just Auto Fast Forw

[Buran]

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 ...

Re:features restored

[MadAnthony02]

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.