Awareness group stands up to the tyranny of the networks

Okay, this is a little dry and convoluted, but it's important, so try to follow along:

TWICE: Appeal Sought For Remote DVR System

New York — A group of 11 industry and public interest groups have filed an appeal to overturn a recent lower-court decision last March that made cable TV multiple system operator Cablevision liable for copyright infringement if it proceeded to use a new digital video recording system that caches subscribers’ TV recordings at the cable head-end rather than on a resident hard drive.
Public Knowledge, a fair-use recording rights advocacy group and one of the organizations that joined in filing the appeal with 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, here, June 8, said, “Consumers should have the benefits of a new convenient way to record programs from a cable TV system.”
Public Knowledge said that if allowed to stand, the ruling “would establish an unprincipled legal bias against remote and network-based services.”

Short form:

There is no distinction between content stored on a DVR in your house and a DVR that is further up the network stream and services your house remotely.

The television companies disagree, and claim that Cablevision is violating copyright and "fair use" by offering to remotely host recorded content, and then play it back on demand to consumers.

Fortunately, prior unreasonable challenges to "fair use" have ultimately failed, and I have confidence that the courts will eventually see the light and refuse to stymie the consumers' right to watch what they want, when they want, how they want.

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