The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of DISH Network Corp (NASDAQ:DISH) on July 14th, affirming the decision of a lower court last year that rejected Fox’s bid to prevent Dish subscribers from using two key features in the Hopper Whole-Home DVR platform.
Fox and the other major television networks initially filed the lawsuit over two years ago to prevent DISH subscribers from using the AutoHop and PrimeTime Anytime features. The Ninth Circuit court rejected the lawsuit in September 2013.
DISH Network Corp (NASDAQ:DISH) reported more than 14 million subscribers as of the end of March who enjoy access to over 200 nationwide high-definition channels.
DISH Network statement
“Today’s decision is the fifth in a string of victories for consumers related to our Hopper® Whole-Home DVR platform. DISH is pleased that the Court has sided again with consumer choice and control by rejecting Fox’s efforts to deny our customers access to the DISH Anywhere and Hopper Transfers features,” Dish executive vice president and general counsel R. Stanton Dodge wrote in a statement released yesterday.
Details on the case
The Dish Anywhere feature allows users to remotely access a television signal from an Internet-connected device given television signal has already been received by the user at their home. The other feature that was challenged in court was Hopper Transfers, which allows users to access content without an Internet connection as users transfer Hopper DVR recordings to an iPad.
Fox argued in its case to prevent DISH Network Corp (NASDAQ:DISH) from offering these features that the technology in effect allows unauthorized streaming of the firm’s copyrighted content over the Internet to DISH subscribers. Fox argues that the streaming of the content is unauthorized, similar to the argument that Fox won last month in its cases versus Aereo.
The appeals court ruled that Fox and the other plaintiffs did not show sufficient evidence of “irreparable harm” resulting from DISH Network Corp (NASDAQ:DISH) subscribers using either feature in question.
