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Fox Sues Dish Over "Auto Hop" Ad-Skipping Feature
therealobsideus writes "Dish recently announced Auto Hop, giving its customers with the Hopper DVR the ability to 'hop' past commercial break on recordings. In response, Fox has filed suit against Dish in U.S. District Court, seeking to block the technology." The L.A. Times has coverage, too. Fox claims that giving viewers the ability to skip commercials on recorded television shows demonstrates the "clear goal of violating copyrights and destroying the fundamental underpinnings of the broadcast television ecosystem."
Whoever didn't see this coming.... can I have your job?
That said... "clear goal of violating copyrights and destroying the fundamental underpinnings of the broadcast television ecosystem." *facepalm* The Internet is SUPPOSED to destroy ecosystems built on artificial scarcity. Free markets and black swans are a bitch, aren't they?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Good! Let's tear down that century-old ecosystem, including the business models of those leeches. They're dying anyway. Let's start over from scratch and figure out how we can do it again, this time in ways that don't require stunting technological innovation.
Not watching commercials is NOT violation of copyright.
If this is illegal, what the fuck is a DVR? What the fuck is a VCR? Both can be used to circumvent commercials.
Man, I hope they get their ass smacked down for this, just as those other idiots did in the past in the other lawsuits.
This happened a number of years ago when ReplayTV offered a feature that automatically skipped commercials. A bunch of studios sued them. The result was that the new DVRs required the users to press a "scene skip" button on the remote to skip over the commercial break. ReplayTV was later bought by DirectTV.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Just ask ReplayTV how well this works out in the end.
Also, lets not forget about Apple's patent on software that would basically freeze our device unless we were demonstrably watching the ads they serve to us, making us answer questions about products featured and even using the camera to make sure that our eyes are focused on the screen.
How long will it be before we see something similar on anything with a front facing camera? I wonder if Microsoft has plans to build this into their next Kinect? This is where these assholes are going with this, and then they'll bitch and complain when even more people just pirate their shit. God, how ridiculous...
Oh, I wouldn't be surprised at all. Next thing will be NoScript getting declared the tool of terrorists and child pornographers and banned.
also there in Opera Mini, a godsend for web browsing over a feature phone without hitting your 75MB/month cap.
If this is illegal, what the fuck is a DVR? What the fuck is a VCR? Both can be used to circumvent commercials...
Ah, quite right, but apparently fast-forwarding a commercial at 200x and not being able to see a damn thing vs. being able to skip it altogether and not be able to see a damn thing are worlds apart legally...er, somehow.
Be real, who watches ads? Even when watching the few shows I watch religiously every week, where my eyes are glued to the screen during the show, I hardly notice the ads, let alone could tell you which ads I just saw or even come up with some kind of detail, or what product they tried to cram down my throat.
And I'm hardly special in this way. Try it. Go watch TV with your pals, don't tell them before and then, after the show, ask them to come up with five commercial they just saw and offer them 10 bucks if they succeed.
I betcha you won't spend a dime on this experiment.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You are saying you didn't enjoy television viewing interrupted every 5 or 10 minutes with brief playlets and illustrated lectures about the purchase of consumer goods?
Outrageous. What's the world coming to?
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Actually, Fox isn't milking the consumers, they're milking their ad customers (companies, not you. You're the product they're selling). I'm pretty sure Fox knows that nobody watches their ads anymore, but this would make it blatantly obvious.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What really makes me wonder what these idiots are smoking is if average Joe gets up and looks for snacks , grabs his wife's boobs, accidentally sharts and has to hit the bathroom, is he violating the contract that makes TV possible?
Why aren't people who pay for cable TV being taxed (so to speak) twice? Once for the subscription and once again for the fucking ads? One of cable TVs big "draws" in the early days was "no commercials..." That didn't last.
Basically we have a bunch of suits who have no idea how stupid they sound... I don't know what's more sad, the idea itself or the actual spreading of the idea... I have this sneaking suspicion no one at Fox (Hey Rupert, suck my crank!) has a voice in their head that tells them "that's a bad idea... keep it to yourself." I imagine they learned about electricity by sticking a fork in a light socket too.
Explains a great many things, I think.. Suffice to say, is there anyone sane left in the entertainment industry? My decision to skip the theater and rental counter is becoming a better and better idea.
I think Joe Sixpack slapped with a lawsuit for getting beer might wake the sheeple up enough to say "what the fuck?" instead of "ooooh. I gotta drop mad bank on a 3D tv so I can experience movies how they were MEANT to be seen! To the Best Buy!"
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
He could mean "[It's] also there in Opera Mini..."
I was actually quite surprised recently when I re-order cable television to watch the Canucks lose in the first round of the playoffs.. I was surprised at all the products, movies, and television that I had no idea about until I saw commercials on tv for the first time in two years. Maybe I'm unique, but I doubt that. I think commericals and advertisements have more effect on us than most people are willing to admit. I'll go out on a limb and say that advertising via commericals on television still works for companies (especially clever and memorable ones such as Coke or Apple)
Shut up you grammar whore
I fear this is what the plan is for the future.
The really pathetic thing is that instead of a sensible ratio of programming to advertisements, the networks - to include the cable only channels - are taking a dual approach. A 50/50 mix on television, un-skippable ads and threats on DVD.
Is there any wonder that people pirate movies? Lessee, it's easier, you don't have a hour and a half movie taking three hours, don't have to listen to mind boggling stupid commercials. And I've taken the alternate route. I don't watch many movies at all any more. Which means I do not see the advertising.
If Television is attempting suicide, it's working as as far as I am concerned.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Honestly, I don't really care about the TV issue one way or the other; but the potential precedent is ugly.
If Dish's plan were to tape the broadcasts, chop out the chaff, and send you the final cut, that'd be a clear-cut case of a copyright infringing unauthorized derivative work.
However, their actual implementation, as best I've been able to tell, doesn't modify the copyrighted source material at all, it just adds specific automated behavior to the playback device. If that is 'copyright infringement' then virtually anything a playback device might choose to get fancy about is subject to the veto of team content. Automatic volume reduction on your music when you get a phone call? Sure. Replaygain volume normalization? Sure. Stretching or letterboxing to put 4:3 on 16:9 or vice-versa? Why certainly. Applying a custom CSS stylesheet to a website against the operator's wishes? You bet.
Yes, it may well happen to be true that OTA broadcasts aren't going to be helped by easy commercial skipping; but something isn't 'copyright infringement' merely because it happens to be bad for the checkbooks of people who hold copyrights. It also has to, y'know, infringe. In this case, if the definition of 'infringement' is stretched far enough to save our poor, beleaguered, broadcasters it is stretched far enough to allow near-total control over any device that handles rendering of copyrighted material, which is virtually anything.
Compared to that, letting all of broadcast TV burn looks like a fantastic idea, even if you are otherwise sympathetic to it...
I wonder if these folks would be shocked to hear that even VCR's had a feature known as 'Fast Forward'. It was a ground breaking function that allowed one to skip content they did not want to see on a recording.
The funny part is that they've all fought to keep as much of their content as possible OFF the internet, where services like Hulu, Netflix and Amazon could do a better job of making sure you DO watch the advertisements. High prices, second-tier titles, delays in availability, etc.
So... do everything to can to fight online TV, then fight the people using the very device that keeps traditional TV alive? They better pick a position for their final stand, because they're fighting losing battles on both fronts.
I'll get the popcorn.
I wonder if YOU would be to hear that there WAS a lawsuit pretty much for that reason a Long long time ago...
Home and professional recording
One other major consequence of the Betamax technology's introduction to the U.S. was the lawsuit Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios (1984, the "Betamax case"), with the U.S. Supreme Court determining home videotaping to be legal in the United States, wherein home videotape cassette recorders were a legal technology since they had substantial noninfringing uses. This precedent was later invoked in MGM v. Grokster (2005), where the high court agreed that the same "substantial noninfringing uses" standard applies to authors and vendors of peer-to-peer file sharing software (notably excepting those who "actively induce" copyright infringement through "purposeful, culpable expression and conduct").
I could have just linked BUT I think that copying for personal use is rather appropriate in a story like this. See? A small unknown and rather likable company always looking out to protect the common man against big evil media companies, Sony, stood their ground and gave us the VCR and made it so that ungrateful snots like DJRumpy don't even remember that once the media he has been spoonfed since birth wanted to deny him this.
Mind you, all this is an old story that has to deal with one of those "everyone knows the social rule but nobody follows it because we are all special but others should follow it because they are not".
Fox has a point, oh my god I will go to hell for that, TV broadcasting gets it money by giving YOU TV and advertisters eyeballs to watch the commercials. It is pretty straight forward entertainment advertising. You watch the pretty girl strut her stuff, you take in that smoking might be good for you after all. Soaps made this very clear, "Women of the world, you like endless drama that never ever gets to a point? Well, we at your favority washing powder brand (and since we give you this lovely tv, surely we are) give you what you want, both on the TV and in the washing machine!".
Of course, this social contract sorta goes two ways. The advertiser actually has to put on a show. The girl has to be pretty, the TV for women absolutely devoid of any intelligence whatsoever. It is NOT part of the contract to completely saturate the viewer and remove any actual entertainment no matter how vapid from the stream. You shouldn't put the pretty girl completely inside the giant pack of smokes. The deal is, nice bits stick out to make it worth looking at her!
TV now has a cable cost, special channels cost extra subscription fees and in exchange for this, we get even MORE commercials!
It is NOT that people hate commercials, see the superbowl ads but it is that when you PUT them freaking everywhere and turn the super bowl into 3 hours of commercials and 15 minutes of action (actually, ain't it already that? Perhaps I should not have used the most boring sport in the world as an example) with the action overlaid and surrounded by ads people just get annoyed.
If you put on a production of a classical piece of theather say eh.... Hamlet ( I do know more then one piece, I assure you! I am not an American after all, no I don't have to proof it) and put up a message "this brought to you by Coca Cola" few would mind. You might even put a banner beside the stage for the brand. BUT if you start to go "To drink Coke or to drink a lesser known brand" people will start to get upset.
Soaps were okay to be interrupted every now and then, after all it gave the women sometime to do some actually bloody housework. It always struck me as odd how women can claim house work is so fucking hard when there is all this TV aimed at them during their supposed working hours. How many TV programs are on during the day aimed at men at work? ZERO! Men don't get to lay on the sofa and watch TV all day dammit! We got to mess around with that new sexy teen girl intern non-stop! How about my wife mess around with the intern and I lay on the
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
No, he didn't, you annoying fucking twat. He was saying the "turn off images" feature is also there in Opera Mini which anyone with a modicum of understanding of the flow of a conversation would understand...
There is a big problem with online TV, from the perspective of companies like Fox: it is very easy for the studios to go directly to their customers. Fox is essentially a publisher. They buy or commission TV shows and then broadcast them with adverts to recoup their original costs and make a profit. If they don't want a show, the studio has few alternatives for distribution, because the airwaves only provide a limited amount of space. On the Internet, this is not the case, as long as someone is willing to pay for it then the studios can keep producing their shows and can keep distributing them. Why would they need the likes of Fox? And, if every show that Fox cancels ends up being directly funded by fans and continuing, who would care about Fox?
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