Cablevision and the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court inched closer today to revisiting -- again -- its landmark 1984 decision in Sony Corp. of America vs. Universal City Studios, better known as the Betamax case. This time, the issue is whether consumers' right to record TV shows for later viewing can evaporate if they use the wrong technology. Put another way, the question is whether home recording rights can be lost if they're provided as part of a service instead of a piece of equipment.

Cablevision, a Long Island, N.Y.-based cable TV provider, wants to offer its customers the digital equivalent of a Betamax recorder. Instead of putting the recorder in a set-top box, as most cable and satellite TV operators do (as does TiVo), the company wants to put it in the central office of its cable system. The major TV networks and film studios sued to block the service, claiming it violated their copyrights. They persuaded District Judge Denny Chin to block Cablevision's plans in March 2007 (with a bizarrely reasoned ruling), but a 2nd Circuit panel overturned that decision and sided with Cablevision (although its reasoning also seemed to be based less on well-established principles than on reaching the desired outcome).

The studios appealed to the Supreme Court, which has yet to decide whether to take the case. This morning, though, the justices asked the U.S. solicitor general to opine on whether Cablevision's service violated copyright law. It's a great case because it shows how new technologies pose unexpected challenges to copyright doctrines. Both Chin and the 2nd Circuit seemed to lose themselves in the technological weeds, examining in intricate detail how Cablevision's system worked. From a 30,000-foot perspective, the issue presented here is pretty simple: If I build a system that lets you, dear consumer, record shows for later viewing, should it matter if put that system somewhere other than a box in your home that I lease to you for $X per month? As long as you're the one deciding what to record and when to record it, does it really matter where the hard drive is?

-- Jon Healey

Healey writes editorials for The Times' Opinion Manufacturing Division.

Comments

[Rich]

Jon-

You hit it on the head - does it really matter where the recordings are stored? The reason Cablevision wants to implement this system is because it will save money and effort in the long run. They can maintain, expand and update software in a central location and offer customers more options without sending a service-person to homes each time.

The only potential sticking point I see for studios is whether Cablevision makes one recording of a show for multiple subscribers. It's a small change in the spirit of a recording for personal use, but again, if you didn't look at the behind the scenes technology, what does it matter if they make one recording or hundreds of recordings of the same show.

[Davis Freeberg]

How is it that Cablevision tries to argue that there is a shortage of bandwidth and we need to implement new pricing models, but then they have plans to implement a bandwidth intensive project like this? They should pick one argument or another and then stick to their guns because it looks like they are trying to have their cake and eat it too.