In May, the Dish satellite TV network announced a new feature called “Auto Hop” that automatically fast-forwards through the commercials when recorded programming is played back. Fox, CBC, and NBC’s parent company have sued the Dish Network, claiming that by introducing the feature the Dish Network, in the words of Fox’s public statement as published by the Hollywood Reporter is “violating copyrights and destroying the fundamental underpinnings of the broadcast television ecosystem”.
This may feel familiar. About 10 years ago, the networks and other media companies sued the makers of an early DVR called ReplayTV. One of the reasons they took issue with the device was that this version of the machine had an “Auto Skip” button which skipped commercials automatically. According to Arik Hesseldahl of Forbes.com and Brian Stelter of The New York Times, the company just didn’t have the financial resources build their market share and make a go of it in the face of the legal battles, and they filed bankruptcy a few years later.
Clearly, commercial-skipping is something audiences would like – which means that every now and again an equipment manufacturer or cable/satellite system braves the wrath of the TV networks to try and build up their customer base by offering it. Equally clearly, it’s something that the TV stations and networks, who make most of their money from ads, feel enormously threatened by.
Furthermore, arguably, this isn’t even the second time around. There was a somewhat similar case even further back, in the early 1980s. A legal debate arose when VCRs first came on the market. Several TV and movie studios sued Sony, which made the BetaMax player. According to the legal documents available through Justica.com, their argument was that when people used the machines to record television shows it constituted a copyright infringement and that the VCR manufactures were liable for helping them do it. They wanted an injunction that would prevent the sale of VCRs. The case went to the Supreme Court, which eventually held that because recording and time-shifting programs for one’s personal use counts as fair use, the equipment had substantive non-infringing weren’t liable for any copyright violations (like recording and selling copies) that VRC purchasers might get up to.
