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Fox's Attempt To Block Ad-skipping TV Recorder Autohop Fails

Posted by samzenpus on from the skip-ahead dept.

another random user writes that Fox's preliminary attempt to stop Dish Network's Autohop feature has failed in court. "A bid to block a TV service that allows viewers to automatically skip adverts on recorded shows has been rejected. Fox had called for a preliminary injunction on Dish Network's Autohop ahead of a copyright ruling. Broadcasters Fox, Comcast, NBC and CBS have each sued Dish Networks, saying the show recordings are unauthorized. Fox said it would appeal against the ruling. It says Autohop is 'destroying the fundamental underpinnings of the broadcast television ecosystem.' But Dish called the decision not to grant a preliminary injunction a 'victory for common sense.' Its Hopper digital video recorder can record and store prime-time content from the four major networks for up to eight days. And the Autohop feature lets viewers skip advertisements completely — rather than fast-forwarding through them — at the press of a button."

32 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. There's this website by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It lets me find where I can download TV with the ads already skipped, months before it screens in my country.

    1. Re:There's this website by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 2

      You have to go to a website? How quaint. I just have SickBeard sit and watch RSS feeds and grab stuff the second it's available.

      It's pretty much a DVR minus the commercials.

  2. I remember when... by inode_buddha · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I remember when the cable co (now Time-Warner) came to my town back in the 80's. They said the subscription model would eliminate the need for ads.

    AAahahahahahahahahahaha........

    It reminds me of the insurance companies back then, all led by good God-fearing Republicans.

    "If you pass seatbelt laws, the premiums can go down. If you pass Daytime-running lights the rates may go down. If you have airbags the rates will go *way* down."

    I'm still waiting for the rates to go down.
    ,
    .

    --
    C|N>K
    1. Re:I remember when... by MorphOSX · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Rates will go down when the number of things causing accidents does. Texting/distracted driving has gone WAY up, so even if all the features making the insurance rates go down, in theory, are there, then the average cost to all insurers to cover the people that get into wrecks while distracted driving, etc., jack them right back up again, since it all works off of an aggregate pool. So, while income from subscriptions to cable/satellite may ultimately negate the need for commercials, the cost of funding the programing goes up as well, through greed and inflation. So, what cost maybe $1.5m to make in 1990, now costs 10.5+, and considering the amount of stuff on TV that people watch, the sheer enormity of the costs to produce it all would nowhere near be covered by subscription fees alone. that leaves you with the basic other source of funding: advertisements.

    2. Re:I remember when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Rates will go down when the number of things causing accidents does. Texting/distracted driving has gone WAY up,

      Texting may have gone way up, but distracted driving hasn't. Just that the distraction itself is changing.

      Texting while driving is really dumb, but so is putting on makeup, reading a paper, eating a salad. But dumb people do dumb things
      and not much has changed overall.

    3. Re:I remember when... by sjames · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And those risks 'just happened' to come into existence right as the insurers were about to honor their promise that those new mandates would slash rates across the board. WHAT A SHOCKING COINCIDENCE! Who could EVER have guessed that? Billions to one and yet it happens every single time.

      Or perhaps they might just be liars.

    4. Re:I remember when... by pclminion · · Score: 4, Funny

      Not to mention that most people, when given a method of reducing base risk, will alter their behavior to bring risk back to previous levels. If you give somebody a way to be safer in a car crash, they'll use that "risk capital" to drive faster.

      The crotchety old father of a friend of mine has a suggestion to reduce accident rates: installation of an eight inch metal spike in the center of the steering wheel, pointed at the driver's chest. And no seat belts. Bet you'll drive a bit safer in that configuration.

    5. Re:I remember when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong WRONG.

      The cost of anything will never go down because the market has already worked out how much you're willing to pay. If the cost of the service to the vendor ever goes down then that's PROFIT. Prices will never go down even if the cost of providing the services reaches zero.

      If the cost reaches zero then the only way to realize that cost reduction is by reimplementing the whole system at reduced cost again...cloning. Of course we have IP law to make sure this doesn't happen and we can keep prices artificially high.

    6. Re:I remember when... by mallyn · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I can put in my two cents for the rising cost of programs.

      Once upon a time, a film crew took over a neighbour's house (with their permission, of course) to film a TV program.

      I could watch the activity out of my bedroom window.

      This took several days' time to file just on half hour program.

      There were, of course the large number of trucks parked at the scene. Food trucks. Dressing room trucks. Lighting trucks (at least four or five of these and some of them were these giant semis). Even shower trucks. And *many* people.

      What **ASTOUNDED** me was the sheer number of people who looked like they were standing around doing nothing.

      I went downstairs and outside and started asking questions to other neighbours who were watching what was going on. She said that this is usual. Union rules require that each person have a very specific job. An electrician can only connect/disconnect lights. They cannot move anything.

      She also said that it take an average of two or three hours to film just a few seconds of what you see on screen.

      And *all* of the people I saw were paid union wages. Those wages bump up to 2x for each minute over 8 hours per day.

      Folks. That experience taught me that TV shows are not cheap by any means!

      --
      Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
    7. Re:I remember when... by mcgrew · · Score: 2

      But dumb people do dumb things and not much has changed overall.

      people haven't changed, but cars sure have. Since I started driving they got rid of metal dashes, added seat belts, air bags, antilock brakes, and replaced the old drum brakes with the far more effective disk brakes.

      So the idiot driver is still going to wreck her car, but it will be harder to do and she's more likely to survive the crash.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    8. Re:I remember when... by Metabolife · · Score: 4, Funny

      We're continually working to improve the quality of our idiots to meet the most demanding of "idiot proof" devices.

  3. Re:Autohop by Huntr · · Score: 5, Informative

    You turn the feature on and all the ads are automatically skipped over.

  4. Fox...turning on the Free Market. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    What a surprise.

    I knew there love affair wasn't going to last very long.

  5. They don't like autohop? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well i wonder how pissed they are that i don't even watch network tv anymore.. BECAUSE THEY ARE CHOCK FULL OF FUCKING ADS! I really can't stand it anymore. It's gotten so bad over the last decade. Any given show is now at least 40% ads. Maybe even more now with product placement and other scumbag ideas.

    The world has too many ads. Period. And i'm not gonna join in anymore. Actually i even tend to avoid any products or stores that advertise often. Or annoyingly.

    Advertisers ruin every thing they have ever touched. TV, Radio, Internet, Phone, Magazines, Even the real world driving down the road you are blasted with ads every 50 feet.

    You make the world a worse place. I despise you all.

    1. Re:They don't like autohop? by mark-t · · Score: 2, Informative
      I've timed the ads before. A show that uses up an hour time slot will use between 10 and 15 minutes for ads.

      It's substantial, but it's not 40%.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    2. Re:They don't like autohop? by Formalin · · Score: 2

      It used to be generally 22/8 for a half hour slot (27%), in Canada at least. There was a comedy show with 22 minutes in the name, related to that.

      It always seemed to me that American channels had more advertising, but maybe it was just more unbearable that it felt longer. Goddamn lawyer ads, loans, no credit this and that, factory outlet, and so on.

      I seem to think tv-rips were/are still 20(40)+ minutes, and they fit in half (full)hour slots...

    3. Re:They don't like autohop? by toejam13 · · Score: 2

      At this point, I consider broadcast television to be a waste of my time. Roughly 25-30% of any given program is dedicated to advertisement. For a 30 minute show, this doesn't leave enough running time to have much depth in the story. You really need the full hour to do much. Even with hour-plus shows, the commercial blocks are now so long that you lose the suspense and drama that builds up, so why bother?

      Also, the ads usually have little relevance for me. The majority of ads I see on television these days are targeted at seniors. That says a lot about the demographics of the people who are still left watching ads.

      So I stopped watching most of the 30 minute shows and now resort to my DVR, Netflix, RedBox and other sources for the remaining content. Hulu really isn't one of them anymore now that they increased their ad count and refuse to make Hulu+ ad free.

      My hope is that commercial supported television dies and is replaced by pay-per-view or subscription models. The technology is there, but media companies have huge ownership stakes in cable companies and are resistant to such change. Also, seniors living on fixed incomes consume a huge amount of television and would resist any change because they often have have little disposable income.

      Were such a shift to occur, a bright spot would be the return of smarter content. Remember that advertisers dislike shows that draw in intelligent viewers because said viewers have better critical analysis skills and therefore are less swayed by commercials. Nix the ads and that barrier goes away.

  6. You will get what you pay for... by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This just means "free" programming will become even more unwatchable.

    I rarely watch live broadcast TV, and the other day I saw a show that had crap all over the screen - network bug in one corner, what I guess is a "twitter hashtag" in another corner - random "tweets" popping up... if not that then a crawl on the screen advertising when some OTHER show will come on, etc. etc. Let alone the full-on commercials.

    As everyone uses a recorder and skips ads, the networks will have no choice but to embed ads into the content even deeper, if that is possible.

    Even for "free" I don't want it. I, like others, am "this close" to canceling the tv portion of my cable bill altogether.

    --
    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
    1. Re:You will get what you pay for... by fustakrakich · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not free when you have to pay to receive the 'broadcast'. If they want me to watch the ads, first they'll have to cover my subscription costs, and then they'll have to make the ads worth viewing. And also, the Betamax ruling says we are allowed to record shows for later viewing.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    2. Re:You will get what you pay for... by Formalin · · Score: 2

      Soon they will have the TV split into a nine part grid, with the show in the centre, and ads running constantly on the other 8 equal sized portions of the screen.

      And they'll still have ads on the 'show' portion of the screen half the time.

      Then you'll need to get a projector to get the show back to the size it is now.

      More and more... whenever I see the internet bareback, or watch TV, or hear commercial radio broadcasts... I'm shocked by how excessive and incessant the advertising is. I don't remember it being quite that bad when I quit watching live TV / started using adblock / only listen to the public radio station.

    3. Re:You will get what you pay for... by mysidia · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And also, the Betamax ruling says we are allowed to record shows for later viewing.

      That was before DRM, the DMCA, Macrovision technology, and the broadcast flag.

      Content providers can prevent recording and manipulation of their content, by encrypting it, and leveraging contractual relationships with cable and sat companies to require content by delivered DRM protected to certain hardware that meets certain security requirements such as HDCP and doesn't have specific capabilities (such as analog content export, and commercial skip).

  7. Screw 'em all. by JustNiz · · Score: 3

    It boggles my mind why everyone on a geek website buys products like this rather than just get an old PC, a TV tuner card and install Linux+mythTV on it.

    I get to record and keep whatever I like for as long as I like and it auto-skips commercials too. Plus I can pipe tv all over the house over my home network. Best of all I own the box, can install what the hell I like on it, and the software is free.

    1. Re:Screw 'em all. by JDG1980 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It boggles my mind why everyone on a geek website buys products like this rather than just get an old PC, a TV tuner card and install Linux+mythTV on it.

      Linux+MythTV won't be a viable PVR option for many users until CableCard is cracked (or unless the FCC actually forces the cable companies to be platform agnostic, which seems very unlikely). OTA TV isn't good enough unless you want to be very limited in the shows you can watch.

    2. Re:Screw 'em all. by triffid_98 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I realize it gets no geek cred, but Windows Media Center works just fine with CableCard. It also doesn't require you to pay subscription fees for TV listings like MythTV does.

      Oh and also integration with both Netflix and XBMC, I really want to like MythTV. It does a lot of things well but it can't do everything I need it to.

  8. They charge Dish Network to carry them, right? by BenJeremy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is the thing that has bothered me since the (1996?) law was changed, allowing "free" broadcast channels to charge cable and satellite operators to carry them. If they had to rely on OTA viewers, their ratings (and thusly, their advertising revenue) would go to shit. Cable and satellite providers boost these ratings, making their commercial revenue much greater... but they get to double dip?

    The way I see it, when they charge for access to their programming, commercials are no longer a relevant part of the "ecosystem" - they are no different from HBO or Showtime, since they collect fees for every viewer on that system. In that respect, skipping commercials are fair game.

  9. Re:Seems fairly simple.... by jedidiah · · Score: 2

    The only problem with that is that the likes of MythTV are in the same arms race. As soon as any open source project figures out how to deal with the the new scheme, EVERYONE will ( including Dish).

    Although we may be quickly reaching the point where it just doesn't matter anymore.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  10. Ah The Beauty... by Greyfox · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is the joy that is Fox's core demographic. They're... quite forgetful, you see. You'll understand when you reach that age. So they need frequent... nay... CONSTANT reminders to buy gold, erectile dysfunction drugs and adult diapers. If the stream of advertising stops for EVEN A MOMENT, Fox's audience will immediately become gold-free, limp, damp shadows of their former selves, wallowing in their own filth. Look! It's HAPPENING ALREADY!

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  11. FCC requires IEEE-1394 unencrypted feed by girlinatrainingbra · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The FCC also requires every cable provider to give you a set-top box (STB) that gives unencrypted access via a firewire (IEEE 1394) port. Look it up. Write down the requirement number. Call up your provider and tell them to give you a box with IEEE-1394 access to an unencrypted feed.

    :>)

    Reference: 1394 interface as defined in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandate for a functional 1394 interface in the STB

    1394 Trade Association sez : http://www.1394ta.org/press/TAPress/2010_0622.html

    1. Re:FCC requires IEEE-1394 unencrypted feed by rsmith-mac · · Score: 2

      Sure, technically that's a requirement. But any programming flagged Copy Never can't be sent over it, and as for everything else, what are you going to feed it to? There isn't any readily available software that can take advantage of that feature, so it goes unused even by geeks.

  12. Re:Seems fairly simple.... by mysidia · · Score: 2

    All they need to do is figure out how Autohop works, and then redesign their advertisements so that they defeat feature. Some are based on volume detection... all the network would need to do to defeat that is have the commercials at the same volume level as the programming

    There is another option..... attempt to trick Autohop into thinking parts of the programming are commercials, so that they wind up skipping highly noticeable chunks of actual programming.

    People will be less inclined to use the feature, if it results in them missing important parts of the show.

  13. Simple Fix: Make Ads Fun to Watch by ShoulderOfOrion · · Score: 2

    Like the Allstate Mayhem commercials. In my long-ago youth I remember ads being much more entertaining and unobtrusive. I was never annoyed by the Dolly Madison commercials during the Peanuts holiday season specials--it actually seems like something is missing when I watch the Peanuts specials on DVD without them. How about Wendy's "Where's the Beef?" Just a few years back the K9 Advantix "Hello Father Hello Mother" puppy commercial was great.

    These days it's the same old sterile erectile-dysfunction ad played over and over again until you're ready to throw a heavy object at the screen. Sadly, LCDs don't produce the same satisfying BOOM the old CRTs did.

    I have a few suggestions for some really funny erectile dysfunction ads. If anyone from Madison Ave is interested in hearing them, call me.

  14. Re:Autohop by socrplayr813 · · Score: 2

    The last time I used Myth (within a few months I believe), the commercial detection worked flawlessly for the few shows I recorded. My Myth box unfortunately does not handle HD well and doesn't get much use anymore, but it seems to have improved since the box was under the TV a few years ago. If the Myth guys can get it that good, I think there's hope for Dish. (Though if the AC is correct and it's all done by people, it doesn't really matter what I say)

    I'm sure someone will post that Myth sucks and never detects commercials properly, but it worked for me.

    --
    The confidence of ignorance will always overcome the indecision of knowledge.