Battle over network DVR stalls in court

The U.S. Supreme court declined to hear a case that could ultimately affect how much people pay for cable DVR service, instead asking the Department of Justice to weigh in.

Cablevision’s Mystro TV, first introduced for testing in 2003, has hung in legal limbo for three years. Instead of recording programs onto a device in viewers’ homes, the network DVR stores and accesses recorded programs through the cable provider itself.

Hollywood studios and TV networks argue that this practice is a form of copyright infringement because it resembles video on demand, and they’ve claimed during the years-long legal battle that Cablevision should pay licensing fees to copy the programming. Cablevision counters that subscribers are technically the ones copying the shows. Other cable companies, interested in launching their own network DVRs, are watching the case.

In the end, this fight over what seems like a minor technicality could have a major impact on customers. Cablevision says each set-top DVR costs $100 and customers foot the bill by renting them. Marguerite Reardon at CNet points out that a centralized service would either shrink or eliminate these boxes, doing the same to the attached cost.

Still, there doesn’t seem to be any difference in actual service between networked and local DVR, which makes this excruciatingly long court affair seem like a petty argument over semantics. In both instances, customers will be able to record live television and play it back at their leisure.

Without being privy to the details of the court proceedings, it’s hard to know what nefarious acts the movie studios and TV networks are conjuring when they get all hot and bothered about these devices. But given the possibility of more affordable DVR, one could go on a limb and say this is a last-ditch effort to control increasingly fickle consumers.

It’s not clear when the case will be resolved. The Justice Department could either make a decision or give the case back to the high court. If that happens, it won’t be heard again until the fall.