TiVo Patent Victory Over Dish Network Upheld 186
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."
This will just make tivo look bad (Score:1, Interesting)
Also, does this have ramifications for other disk-based DVR's such as those offered by cable companies and DirecTV?
Re:Dish DVR (Score:1, Interesting)
It took me a long ass time to figure out how to add a single TV show to record a season and I'm not sure it even did exactly what I wanted. My 60 year old parents have no idea how to use it aside from pausing, rewinding and watching the terrible "howto" video.
Re:Responses (Score:4, Interesting)
It would seem that it is SOP for a manufacturer to EOL a piece of equipment. Tell the users they need to upgrade. There will be some gnashing of teeth, some users will flee, but if the new product is better... Some people need a shove to move on.
Having said that, I would be pissed off if someone told me I had to abandon a perfectly functional piece of kit and upgrade. I sure a community of terrorists that have hacked their own distro of Linux onto it to maintain functionality could be found. Someone would do it because they could.
Any idea how this affects Bell Express Vue in Canada? I notice about 3 months ago we received new software that did more things that were TIVO like. Record all eps, record all new eps, priorities and so on...
Re:The shit's going to hit the fan (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:This will just make tivo look bad (Score:4, Interesting)
If their legal department is anything like their HR department, talking to them was pretty much useless. I'd be surprised if Tivo had any recourse other than to sue them. Although I hate software patents and think that many DVR-related ones are completely retarded (TV Guide has one for the guide grid format, for example) I can't suppress a certain amount of glee that this misfortune has fallen upon Echostar. So I'm just going to point at them and go "Ha-ha!"
Re:The shit's going to hit the fan (Score:3, Interesting)
I think Vista is having trouble in the market because consumers perceive it as incompatible, slow, unstable and annoying (with its attempts to protect users by using a million dialogs). Vista will win out despite consumers because Microsoft has the strength to force a noisy minority to comply. (it's a significantly large minority though!)
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Directv and DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a crappy, buggy Directv HR20 HD DVR. I received a message a couple days ago. It seems if I were to record a PPV movie (I don't, I don't like their PPV prices) I now have only one day to watch it before they are going to remotely erase it from my DVR.
Unbelievable.
Now there's DRM for ya!
Re:Unlikely (Score:3, Interesting)
Whoever thinks Dish will simply turn off DVR service with the flick of a switch, is sorely lost when it comes to even simple business tactics, let alone creative thinking.