Time Warner Cable Box Rental Inspired Antitrust Lawsuit

EmagGeek writes "Matthey Meeds, a real-estate agent, was so irritated about having to pay the monthly rental fee that on Tuesday he filed an antitrust suit against Time Warner Cable and its 84 percent owner, Time Warner Inc. The suit alleges that, by linking the provision of premium cable services to rental of the cable box, the companies have established illegal tying arrangements. 'Time Warner's improper tying and bundling harms competition,' Meeds' lawsuit states. 'Since the class can only rent the cable box directly from Time Warner, manufacturers of cable boxes are foreclosed from renting and/or selling cable boxes directly to members of the class at a lower cost.' I pay Comcast over $25/mo for my two DVRs. I'd love to just be able to buy them or build my own. I can't wait to see how this unfolds."

Comments

What's more disturbing to me...

[pandrijeczko]

...are the vast numbers of people over the whole of this world of ours who *pay* for TV services that *also* have advertising included.

Here in the UK, you don't get much of a choice to not pay the TV License fee but at least everything the BBC broadcasts is advert free. And likewise, I will happily sit & watch the free cable/satellite channels that have advertising breaks.

But I definitely *WON'T* pay to be advertised at.

Re:What's more disturbing to me...

[Life2Short]

Exactly wrong. Premium cable channels were originally commercial free in the U.S. That was one of the reasons early cable was a "big deal." One watched movies on HBO for example, not commercials. AMC is another good example. No commercials ever. Almost all cable channels in the late 70s / early 80s had limited or no commercials. Then the commercial creep set in. Commercials between the movies. OK. Commercials during the movie, lots of them. And in the intervening time cable rates have gone up at rates that far exceed inflation. We're paying more for cable and getting way more commercials. It's crap. And before someone says that channels like AMC now offer original programming, let me remind you that they introduced commercials long before they produced original programming.

Re:Better solutions are out there..

[Icarium]

Naughty. You used the word "Vista" and "solution" in the same sentence without a negative. This is Slashdot, what were you thinking?

Anyways:

Enjoy your 3 months of free DVR rental as part of your settlement offer

The point here is not to make a quick buck in a settlement. It's to get the cable company to unbundle thier service from thier hardware. If the company won't give you access to thier premium services without renting thier cable box, your alternatives don't help.

Re:Choice is there, he just doesn't like it.

[Gewalt]

it is Time Warner's network and they should be able to do whatever they want with it. I hate this current generation of people who think they're entitled to something just because they don't think it's "fair". Well, I've got news for you, this is how property rights work. If it's your property, you get to decide what to do with it.

But... It's not their property. It's actually the government granted right of way. What does that mean? That means IT'S YOUR PROPERTY. If there were actual competition, then sure, what you said is valid. But there isn't competition, cause the government said they don't need any competition. the government said they can go ahead and abuse YOUR PROPERTY to setup this network. In return, they are obligated to follow rules that are supposed to be more stringent because the free market is not capable making sure the deal is fair.

Re:As an Ex cable industry insider....

[$RANDOMLUSER]

And the reason those boxes are of such crappy quality is because the cable companies have such a tight lock. The cable companies want to keep the box cost down to maximize their own profits. If Motorola and SA could sell directly to consumers, they would suddenly have an incentive to improve the quality.