New York - A federal appeals court has ruled that cable TV provider Cablevision's (NYSE: CVC) proposed network-based digital video recorder does not directly infringe on the copyrights of networks and movie studios, and sent the case back to a lower court for further proceedings, Reuters reported. The device would store the programs a user wants to have recorded on Cablevision's servers -- rather than on a hard drive on the recorder device in the consumer's home, a la TiVo.

The networks and studios argued that Cablevision's sending of recorded programs via company servers to consumers' homes constituted unauthorized retransmissions of their copyrighted content.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned a lower court's March 2007 ruling, which found Cablevision's Remote Storage Digital Video Recorder infringed on copyrights.

"This is a tremendous victory for consumers, which will allow us to make DVRs available to many more people, faster and less expensively than would otherwise be possible," said Cablevision chief operating officer Tom Rutledge.

"We appreciate the Court's perspective that, from the standpoint of existing copyright law, remote-storage DVRs are the same as the traditional DVRs that are in use today."

Poll: Do Network-Based DVRs Infringe on the Copyrights of TV Networks and Movie Studios?

Related Links:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080804/tc_nm/cablevison_dc_1

http://snipurl.com/3aph8 (DMW previous coverage)

http://snipurl.com/3aphf (DMW previous coverage)

http://www.cablevision.com