Cablevision Systems Corp., a New York-area cable TV provider, said Tuesday that it will appeal a federal court ruling that blocked the company's rollout of a next-generation digital video recorder service. Cablevision told The Associated Press that it will appeal the decision to the U.
S. Court of Appeals on Tuesday and also seek an expedited review of the case, claiming that the federal court ruling in New York last month misapplied copyright law to its remote-storage digital video recorder, or DVR. Cablevision's case has been closely watched in the cable TV industry.
If allowed to proceed, the remote-storage DVR could allow companies like Cablevision to dramatically increase the rate at which they introduce digital video recording services to their customers. DVRs allow cable TV subscribers to record and play back shows whenever they like, and also to skip through commercials, something that worries the TV industry. That could allow Cablevision to offer the service to many more customers without having to install the expensive hard drive-equipped DVR boxes in each home, as is currently the case.
A group of Hollywood studios successfully sued Cablevision, claiming that the remote-storage system would have amounted to an additional broadcast of their programs, something they haven't given permission for. Cablevision argued that since the control of the recording and playback was in the hands of the consumer, it was permissible under copyright law. A landmark 1984 Supreme Court case found that Sony Corp.
wasn't breaking copyright laws if home viewers used Sony's Betamax videotape recorders to record and play back shows for personal use. "We continue to believe strongly that remote-storage DVR is permissible under current copyright law and offers significant benefits to consumers, including lower costs and faster deployment of this popular technology to our digital cable customers," Tom Rutledge, Cablevision's chief operating officer, said in a statement.
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