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."

And dont you DARE close your eyes or not listen!

[Kenja]

Commercials are mandatory! Any attempt to not view them will result in a law suite!

In other news...

[DubThree]

Fox has filed suit against all electronics manufacturers that have installed a fast-forward function on digital media playing device. Audio cassette manufacturers must remove fast-forward and rewind capabilities because users could skip a recorded radio broadcast commercial by flipping the tape, rewinding, then flipping the tape again.

Re:And dont you DARE close your eyes or not listen

[houstonbofh]

Next, man sued for getting beer during commercials. The assertive defence is that the beer he was getting was in the commercials, but FOX claims that is a moot point. Budweiser to file amicus curiae brief. Says they do not support suing their own customers.

Re:And dont you DARE close your eyes or not listen

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a law suite, once. The lease agreement was 249 pages long and I had to pay $500 per hour just to stand in the doorway.

Considering it's Fox........

[Grayhand]

Is there anyway to skip the content and just watch commercials?

Re:And dont you DARE close your eyes or not listen

[Opportunist]

Given that quality of TV programming, I fail to see the threat.

You need a lawyer

[Roger W Moore]

Personally I don't have a problem with that as i never watch free-to-air anyway

So not only are you missing the commercials you are missing all the product placements in the program as well? I'd start looking for a lawyer...

Re:Shocking.

[Alex Belits]

It's full of annoying commercials?

Re:Next:

[psiclops]

no. as he is talking abount one feature, he wouldn't use the plural 'they'. his post is more correct that you're correction.

Re:And dont you DARE close your eyes or not listen

[Svartormr]

And soon after, gaffer tape gets outlawed as a copyright circumvention device.

How? I thought it was just a nipple supression device. >:)

Re:Next:

[dgatwood]

... that you're correction

*whimpers and crawls into a corner*

Re:And dont you DARE close your eyes or not listen

[ATMAvatar]

Wrestling is surprisingly Sci-Fi. The science is in the steroids, and the fiction is in the wrestling.

Re:Next:

[camperslo]

As a Hulu Plus user myself, I'd love to know how you skip the ads. I've never noticed the option.

Go pee.

Re:You need a lawyer

[RivenAleem]

i've never had a probleM with prODuct placeMent in moviEs and tv. if it means more show and less adds, then i'm happy if the advertising is sUbliminally Placed.

Re:Next:

[arth1]

I was accused of hacking someone's web site once. A site only worked with IE. In order to be helpful, I did a telnet to port 80 and pasted a HEAD command showing that they used backslashes in the huttup of the redirect, and explained that this was the cause of the problem.
The e-mail I got back was downright hostile and accusatory.

That taught me that (a) no good deed goes unpunished, (b) there is no limit to the amount of ignorance of web site operators, and (c) don't give HEAD to those who don't deserve it.

Re:Next:

[Mr. Sanity]

As a Hulu Plus user myself, I'd love to know how you skip the ads. I've never noticed the option.

Go pee.

That didn't work. And now my chair is wet. Damn you.