TiVo Patent Victory Over Dish Network Upheld

Thomas Hawk writes "An appeals court today shot down Dish Network's last chance to avoid a multi-million lawsuit verdict won by TiVo over their time shifting DVR technology. In addition to having to pay TiVo a minimum of $92 million, Dish Network will also now have to honor a court injunction to turn off DVR software to most of their customers. I hope Dish Network customers like commercials with their daily dose of Dr. Phil."

the more the lawyers play, the more the people pay

[Anonymous Coward]

is it just me, or does it seem that the law is more about money than justice?

it sure looks like professionalism these days means cheat your country and screw society

Its not going away

[WaHooCrazy7]

Dish DVR is not going away, it's their old software that violated the software patents. Their new software does not violate the TiVo software patents. This new software was pushed out by Dish about 3 months ago. Very misleading article.

Re:This will just make tivo look bad

[OrangeTide]

Knowing Tivo they begged and pleaded for months to get Dish to pay for a license. Either Tivo asked for too much or Dish was uncooperative.

Re:The shit's going to hit the fan

[noidentity]

I know you joke, but it's the truth. Why else do you think the government organized a huge coupon program to help people get the converter boxes? And kept pushing back the changeover date as well...

Re:The shit's going to hit the fan

[fyngyrz]

You accept DRM. Acting on the presumption that the consumer is a criminal before the fact is ample evidence that the system - not the consumer - is broken.

Re:Responses

[1729]

If DISH network has corrected the problem with a new software download, why do they need to pursue this to the US Supreme Court?

It might have something to do with the $92M judgement.

Re:The shit's going to hit the fan

[Cheesey]

If he does, then he's not in the minority. I bet 99% of the people who read this post are XBox, PS3 or Wii owners: I think the DRM on those systems is tolerated so widely because it just works. Even nerds who understand the implications are willing to buy into it.

Some people object to DRM on ideological grounds, but not many. It's like free software versus commercial software. You can decide to use only free software because it fits your personal ideology, but most people use a mixture of free and non-free software. If good free software doesn't exist for a task, then they pay up. Equally, we would all prefer to have no DRM, but we can tolerate it if it means we get to do something that we wouldn't otherwise be able to do.

Re:The shit's going to hit the fan

[fyngyrz]

Use is not synonymous with acceptance. Toleration or passivity in the face of it is; personally, I'm active in a number of ways, from not allowing DRM of any kind on the commercial executables we produce, to creating PD software that demonstrates the fallacy of the GPL type of approach, to pestering my representatives to stop creating legislation that presumes citizens are criminals absent probable cause, oath or affirmation, and warrant. I donate to causes that support this view, and speak against causes that criminalize legitimate action.

Re:This will just make tivo look bad

[PuckSR]

Yeah, but knowing Dish Network...they probably weren't interested in paying someone for technology that they developed.

The entire patent is bogus. Tivo combined time-shifting with a digital storage device and an on-screen guide. Hmmm. Time-shifting is not patented by tivo. Digital storage of video is not patented by tivo. Dish Network and DirecTV actually hold prior art on the on-screen guide. This seemed like a fairly obvious usage of common technologies.

Remember. Dish Network is the same company that turned all Viacom channels off for a few weeks because they didn't want to give in to pushy business practices by Viacom. I am not saying this is good or bad, but I am saying that Charlie Ergen(Dish CEO) has big testicles.

So, I doubt it was that Tivo asked for too much money. I think the fact that TIVO asked for money at all would have put them off.

Re:Die, TiVo

[TooMuchToDo]

Perhaps it's that Tivo "just works"? If I wasn't gainfully employeed and had tens of hours a week to burn, I'd get a MythTV box. If I wanted to be frustrated all the time when watching TV, I'd get a Comcast DVR system. Tivo's benefit isn't software, or the guide data, it's usability. Those of us with disposable income don't mind paying $15/month to have all of our shows waiting for us and not having a problem when we try to watch them.

Re:The shit's going to hit the fan

[OrangeTide]

As long as you continue to replace DVD players with Blu-Ray players. And continue to upgrade your equipment to DRM-enabled versions, you are accepting DRM. As long as there demand for DRM there will be supply. And providing demand is acceptance when alternatives exist and are actually cheaper.

Alternative to HDMI - component video, dvi
Alternative to Blu-Ray - DVD (which has laughable DRM)
Alternative to iTunes - DRM-free MP3 download(amazon, etc), CDs that are not protected(harder to tell)

ps - try as we might, we will not be able to defeat the GPL empire. I do MIT license and PD software. But it just gets bundle with a bunch of GPL stuff anyways. GPL's model always wins even if it's the wrong model.

Re:Directv and DRM

[NotQuiteInsane]

At the risk of getting flamed into oblivion by the "DRM BAAAAD" crowd... surely if you PPV a movie, you're paying for the right to watch it once. Like going to the cinema - if you want to see it again, you buy another ticket. This is pretty much how Sky advertised their 'Box Office' PPV service - "it's like a cinema in your living room" (IIRC).

Except in this case you can live-pause the movie while you refill your tub of popcorn, grab another beer, or whatever. Then if you missed a few seconds you can kick it back and watch it again so you don't miss any of the plot.

For what it's worth, I can't honestly think of any movie I've watched in the last ~4 years that I'd actually watch again...

Re:Die, TiVo

[netringer]

OMG! The "8 second jump back"! What an amazing, novel concept! Hold us back, lest we froth at the mouth at this momentous innovation!

Spoken like a person who never had it.

The innovation is not only that it can jump back 8 seconds, but that there is a single button right your finger to do it. What's obvious is rewind. A one-button "Wait! What was that just now?" rewind is and was novel.

The jump back is so essential, I've caught myself reaching for it on the car radio.

I held off buying an iPod until the Apple genius showed how I could backup podcasts sorta the same way (it needs to be ONE button).

I want jump back in life. I tried to replay things I see out the window!

What slashdotters should keep in mind was that the founding TiVo developers were Linux hackers - one of us. I suspect those pioneers have been gone from TiVo for years - lost during the early hard times, but we should appreciate that they built what we wanted. That legacy is reflected that TiVo never really came down hard on TiVo hacking. They even knew the hackability was a sales feature. I was surveyed as such years ago.

Again, what's sad is TiVo's inability to come up with a business model with the film industry and TV services fighting them at every step. It never helped that you couldn't explain the product in a sentence.