Judge Will Not Ban Dish's Hopper Technology

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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May 9, 2000
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Dish Network’s Hopper Technology is still a-hoppin’ thanks to a ruling by a New York judge. The lawsuits are not over by any means, but this judgment joins another similar decision from California. Score: Hopper 2, Networks 0. :D

The hardware will remain legal in New York now, against the wishes of ABC, which had requested the injunction.
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Its complete crap that they force us to watch commercials on pay TV to begin with....if I'm paying to have the content delivered to my house, I should damn well be able to choose what I see
 
Serious WTF moment... they're not suing Dish because they stole some technology and rebadged it, they're suing because they're pissed here's this item that allows you to auto-skip commercials? Pressing a button on the remote to do it, ok... setting it up to do automatically not ok?
 
Crosshairs said:
Its complete crap that they force us to watch commercials on pay TV to begin with....if I'm paying to have the content delivered to my house, I should damn well be able to choose what I see
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For that same reason, I cancelled my Dish Network subscription. Too many damn commercials every 5 mins or so. And during the season finales of any show they would ramp it up, if it's even possible.
I would have kept HBO and Starz and pay a premium, but that was not allowed.

And so, cancelled it was....!
 
I'd call it what it is. Theft.

ABC spends money to create content. This is paid for by advertising.
 
Both sides have valid points. Honestly, I think having a 30 second jump is good enough. If you're too lazy to do that, then you suffer with the commercials. It also means there's a possibility that you'll see some of commercials.

I know that with my old DirectTivo I could do a 30 second jump, but it required some remote code to enable it. Perhaps a reasonable compromise would be the hopper only works on shows that were recorded more than 5 days ago...otherwise manually jump it.

That way, advertisers have a little faith in the extended rating period and viewers that absolutely can't push skip a few times/break have auto skip.
 
Qinsp said:
I'd call it what it is. Theft.

ABC spends money to create content. This is paid for by advertising.
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but how is it theft?...
Free OTA programming is one thing. but were not talking about that.... people pay to have Direct TV..and and Direct TV pays ABC for their content. ..so if we are paying for the content, we should not be forced to watch what we dont want to watch
 
Crosshairs said:
but how is it theft?...
Free OTA programming is one thing. but were not talking about that.... people pay to have Direct TV..and and Direct TV pays ABC for their content. ..so if we are paying for the content, we should not be forced to watch what we dont want to watch
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That's a nice thought, but it only would be true if it was part of the agreement you signed. Just because you pay for something doesn't mean you are paying not to get advertisements.

Now, if they are forcing you to watch the advertisements and you can't skip them, it's up to you to decide it's unacceptable and stop paying them for it. Ring them up and tell them that's why you stopped paying for their service.

If people actually did that in large enough numbers, the advertisers would stop paying to have their ads where no one is going to see them and providers would stop forcing ads since it'd be costing them too much.
 
Tudz said:
That's a nice thought, but it only would be true if it was part of the agreement you signed. Just because you pay for something doesn't mean you are paying not to get advertisements.
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and just because I'm getting them, does not mean I have to watch them....

Tudz said:
Now, if they are forcing you to watch the advertisements and you can't skip them.
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and that's exactly what they are trying to do


Anyway,I dont have Direct TV so its irrelevant, but as it stands, the judge agrees with my assessment....the affiliates are free to deliver them to me, and I am free to skip over them.

This is the only ruling that would have made sense, and I'm glad to see it .
 
pothb said:
I thought it's paid by the subscription or was that just extra?
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Correct, they make all the money they need to make their shows and run the business and make a profit from the sub.

The ads just increase the profit making them richer, they are unneeded.
 
I hate commercials. But this is about business and the future of entertainment.

If ABC sells you 1 hr of programming with commercials, unless there is a specific clause that says you can delete the commercials or replace them with your own commercials, then you can't.

If you don't agree, make your own content from scratch.

My $140/m cable bill is full of commercials. I think that sucks. But I can always turn it off if I don't think it's a good value.

If you force Broadcast providers to sell their content without commercials, guess what happens?

They either shut down, or up their prices.

You run a business to make money. Entertainment is a highly competitive industry. We are going to kill free content by using the courts to force the issue.
 
Qinsp said:
You run a business to make money. Entertainment is a highly competitive industry. We are going to kill free content by using the courts to force the issue.
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99% of my entertainment these days is through youtube, which I ad-block. I rarely, RARELY watch TV anymore

At that, a good 70-80% of that youtube content is better then whats on TV to begin with, done by people with passion in their homes etc

People ask me how I live without television, I have the net, I don't need television
 
Someone explain to me how the Hopper is some how different than any other DVR? With other DVRs you can skip commercials if you let the show run a little long (or record it) why is the Hopper being singled out over all others?
 
sfsuphysics said:
Someone explain to me how the Hopper is some how different than any other DVR? With other DVRs you can skip commercials if you let the show run a little long (or record it) why is the Hopper being singled out over all others?
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It's automated. You don't have to skip the commercials, it can does it for you (assuming you turn it on).

Some people that watch from a DVR still watch commercials, or at least some (by accident, i suspect).
 
Qinsp said:
I hate commercials. But this is about business and the future of entertainment.

If ABC sells you 1 hr of programming with commercials, unless there is a specific clause that says you can delete the commercials or replace them with your own commercials, then you can't.

If you don't agree, make your own content from scratch.

My $140/m cable bill is full of commercials. I think that sucks. But I can always turn it off if I don't think it's a good value.

If you force Broadcast providers to sell their content without commercials, guess what happens?

They either shut down, or up their prices.

You run a business to make money. Entertainment is a highly competitive industry. We are going to kill free content by using the courts to force the issue.
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Yea, and People make products. Some of which allows them to detect something that they think people don't want and skip it. It's a product that people made to make money. So... there you go.
 
Spazturtle said:
Correct, they make all the money they need to make their shows and run the business and make a profit from the sub.

The ads just increase the profit making them richer, they are unneeded.
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You have any evidence of that?
 
ShamisOMally said:
99% of my entertainment these days is through youtube, which I ad-block. I rarely, RARELY watch TV anymore
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Really? How many hours of youtube do you think you watch? I personally get burnt out on youtube quite quickly. Used to watch collegehumour, but after a while I stopped finding it entertaining. I think I spent more time watching BSG (just a single TV series) than I have spent watching internet videos in the years I've been able to watch videos on the internet.
 
Spazturtle said:
The ads just increase the profit making them richer, they are unneeded.
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I think you're severely underestimating how much TV shows cost to produce. Not everything can be super low cost Reality TV programming.
 
I just find it funny that the same people that would call commercial skipping theft would most likely scream "FASCISM" if the government wanted us to watch commercials.

Basically if it's a corporation forcing you to do something, we must do it. Or we're thieving asshats. But if government even farts a whiff of suggestion it's the grossest imposition of all of mankind that must be fought, with guns and bombs if need be!

America. I love the insanity. :)

I just wish we could ban all political ads.
 
They may have lost in California and New York, but I'm sure ABC can find/purchase a judge in East Texas that will rule in their favor.
 
dish hopper should just automatically play all the skipped commercials at the end of the show unconditionally. then no one would have any reason to bitch. lol
 
sfsuphysics said:
Serious WTF moment... they're not suing Dish because they stole some technology and rebadged it, they're suing because they're pissed here's this item that allows you to auto-skip commercials? Pressing a button on the remote to do it, ok... setting it up to do automatically not ok?
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Dish got the technology when they bought Replay TV (Dvr like Tivo). Replay also got sued over this. I had a couple Replay boxes I used for years until I finally replaced them with a Windows 7 HTPC so I could record HD shows.
 
I suspect, unless a judge gets paid off, these will be thrown out or Dish will outright win. If I recall, they're basing their lawsuits around the OnDemand contracts, which state that Dish can't alter the content or something to that effect. The issue with that is that the Hopper does not *download* the content from a master server, thus, it isn't "OnDemand". The Hopper RECORDS the content. It is then flagged (either by algorithm or a sweatshop in India, I'm not sure) for commercials and auto skips. Those commercials still exist and customers are allowed to watch them.
 
Qinsp said:
I hate commercials. But this is about business and the future of entertainment.

If ABC sells you 1 hr of programming with commercials, unless there is a specific clause that says you can delete the commercials or replace them with your own commercials, then you can't.

If you don't agree, make your own content from scratch.

My $140/m cable bill is full of commercials. I think that sucks. But I can always turn it off if I don't think it's a good value.

If you force Broadcast providers to sell their content without commercials, guess what happens?

They either shut down, or up their prices.

You run a business to make money. Entertainment is a highly competitive industry. We are going to kill free content by using the courts to force the issue.
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I always love this type of argument, you run a business to make money. The problem with that is your consumers could care less. I want a product at a reasonable price. I could care less if your business does well or if you barely scrape by. If the business fails, someone else will come by and figure out how to provide the product or service within the accepted price. The problem is when businesses expect an obscene profit instead of just a profit. Look at most cable companies and you'll see that they are making money hand over fist, while continually increasing their prices. The problem with TV right now is that it's too damn expensive, especially with having to watch commercials on top of it. My cable bill right now is around $140/mo and that's on a special offer. When that offer ends, it's going to be around $175-$180/mo. Taking out ~$75 for internet service (which is too damn high as well, but another topic), that leaves me paying ~$100 for TV. That's ridiculous. I'm pretty sure when my special deal ends at the end of this month, I'm joining the ranks of cable cutters. Between Netflix, Amazon video and various network websites, I can watch most of the content I want. Not in as good a quality, but for about $20/mo, which I can tolerate a lot better... ;)

Oh and to be on topic, go Dish! I think Hopper tech is great and look forward to a day we can get reasonably priced, ad free content delivered to our homes!
 
pigwalk said:
I think you're severely underestimating how much TV shows cost to produce. Not everything can be super low cost Reality TV programming.
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Accounts for business are public, you can look yourself if you want.

They could get rid of the ads and still produce the same shows and make a profit.
 
I ditched cable tv years and years ago -- why pay for something that sucks? The original premise of cable/satellite was premium programming, no commercials, pay per view, etc etc.

Cable TV is just like regular TV now, meaning I'm paying to subscribe to a show, instead of 30 minutes of actual show, I get 24 minutes of show and 6 of commercials. Fuck that.

Over the air TV? knock your lights out with Ads -- that's an acceptable business model because it's the only way they can make money.

If I had satellite -- I'd be very interested in buying one of these devices to save myself a few hours over the course of a year (if I actually watched that much TV).

I have a core group of shows I like to watch - but I actually have so much more time for projects and stuff I want to do when I'm not worrying about catching the latest episode of <insert popular crap tv show here>
 
I been using 5min jump button to skip commercials. Most of the time a block of commercials is 5min. Sometimes you may have to rewind a little after the jump. But its better than fast forwarding. That's what I do when watching ondemand. For DVR I just fast forward.

I can't believe they expect people to sit thru 5min of ads.
 
Qinsp said:
I'd call it what it is. Theft.

ABC spends money to create content. This is paid for by advertising.
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You call it theft, I call it a failing business model. The times they are a changin' and maybe television broadcasters need a new business model that will work with the current times.
 
Qinsp said:
I hate commercials. But this is about business and the future of entertainment.

If ABC sells you 1 hr of programming with commercials, unless there is a specific clause that says you can delete the commercials or replace them with your own commercials, then you can't.

If you don't agree, make your own content from scratch.
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I like arguments that fantasize heavy competition in an industry that it virtually devoid of competition. When competition has to be almost exclusively from competing technologies, cable vs. satellite vs. phone, there is no competition.

As for starting my own. The closed club the FCC runs would have something to say about that.
 
To be honest, Netflix has put out some better shows recently than network TV has in a long time, with no commercials and the whole season all at once... for 8 bucks a month. I really see zero reason to keep cable. They need to adapt or die.
 
Spazturtle said:
Accounts for business are public, you can look yourself if you want.

They could get rid of the ads and still produce the same shows and make a profit.
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Well that's a dodge, you're the one who made the statement that they can get rid of ads, you should be able to prove evidence of it.

I'm not going to fish through the annual reports of every fucking network, but I glanced at Discovery and noticed around half the revenue comes from advertising and the other half from "distribution" (what operators who distribute the network pay them), 46% and 49% respectively.

The same year they had revenue of $4,487M, but a net income of $945M. If they'd dropped advertising and all other things remained equal, they would have lost $1,120 million instead of making $945M.
 
Next will be advertising on top of the program, so you can't avoid it.
 
Tudz said:
Well that's a dodge, you're the one who made the statement that they can get rid of ads, you should be able to prove evidence of it.

I'm not going to fish through the annual reports of every fucking network, but I glanced at Discovery and noticed around half the revenue comes from advertising and the other half from "distribution" (what operators who distribute the network pay them), 46% and 49% respectively.

The same year they had revenue of $4,487M, but a net income of $945M. If they'd dropped advertising and all other things remained equal, they would have lost $1,120 million instead of making $945M.
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I'm not bashing you but I find these numbers hard to believe considering Discovery is nothing but low quality, low cost, low brow reality tv garbage. This is either Hollywood accounting at work or a really really bad business plan that needs to be fixed. For them to lose money on reality tv shows (if they weren't filled with commercials and product placement every two seconds) seems unrealistic to me.
 
Tudz said:
That's a nice thought, but it only would be true if it was part of the agreement you signed. Just because you pay for something doesn't mean you are paying not to get advertisements.

Now, if they are forcing you to watch the advertisements and you can't skip them, it's up to you to decide it's unacceptable and stop paying them for it. Ring them up and tell them that's why you stopped paying for their service.

If people actually did that in large enough numbers, the advertisers would stop paying to have their ads where no one is going to see them and providers would stop forcing ads since it'd be costing them too much.
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And they wonder why popular shows are popular on torrent sites.

Providers sure know how to add value to their product don't they?
 
The absurdity I find of this whole situation/argument is that you are not FORCED to watch commercials in any situation. You can always not watch commercials, simply by walking away from the TV when they come on. Or fast-forwarding through them if you have a recording. You can skip commercials at any time whether you walk away, or have some technology to advance through them for you.

What I never understood is that content-providers use commercials to subsidize their programming. But they also use customers to subsidize their programming, via monthly access fees. I totally get why there are commercials on OTA free broadcast programming. I never got why there are commercials in paid-access programming from content providers. I guess perhaps because the total amount of money desired/required to make content is greater than the subscriber fees. But in that case, I think it indicates a problem with the system, not the commercial-viewing.
 
nilepez said:
It's automated. You don't have to skip the commercials, it can does it for you (assuming you turn it on).

Some people that watch from a DVR still watch commercials, or at least some (by accident, i suspect).
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So if I press a button to skip through commercials it's not wrong, but if I tell the DVR to "press the button for me" it is wrong?

It's not like you can watch a show "live" commercial free, there needs to be some buffered time, i.e. it is a recording.

Seriously annoying as all fuck, some judge should slap down a multi-billion dollar fine on ABC for wasting the courts time because someone automated the fast forward button. This is seriously on the same level as telemarketers complaining that the Do Not Call list violates their freedom, the Hopper is basically a "Do Not Call list" for commercials, you can still watch commercials if you choose to do so.
 
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