Audio Video News

Cablevision's appeal of the court ruling that killed its network DVR is gaining some powerful supporters, including the telcos, media activists, libraries, and academics.

The network DVR substitutes remote server storage for the internal hard drive, making it more economical to deploy on a mass scale. Movie studios and TV networks claimed that this was not merely recording but rebroadcasting and thus a violation of copyright law. They sued and won.

But Cablevision's appeal has picked up the support of the Consumer Electronics Association and USTelecom, a trade group whose members include AT&T and Verizon. Interestingly, these two telco giants have recently entered the TV-delivery business, making Verizon in particular a direct competitor of Cablevision in their northeastern service area. Also on Cablevision's side are activists like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, several library associations, and 28 legal and business academics including Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons. Their brief argues that network DVR recordings are "transient" and therefore not covered by copyright law.

A separate brief has been filed by a Columbia Law School professor who argues that the ruling against Cablevision flies in the face of two existing Supreme Court precedents and that the court should "let the market decide."