IP: GROUP[EFF} SUES MAJOR MEDIA FIRMS ON BEHALF OF USERS OF REPLAY TV

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com
Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2002 09:10:06 -0700


[Note:  More info then the story that I posted earlier.  DLH]

GROUP SUES MAJOR MEDIA FIRMS ON BEHALF OF USERS OF REPLAY TV

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a lawsuit against several
large media companies including AOL Time Warner Inc., News Corp., Viacom
Inc., and Walt Disney Co. Earlier this year these four media companies
joined a lawsuit against SonicBlue Inc. to force them to monitor how
ReplayTV 4000 customers used the digital-video recorder. The product
includes a feature to skip commercials and the media industry is extremely
concerned that this will threaten advertising revenues. The media companies
wanted to track individual consumers who might be skipping commercials and
possibly take them to court.  Some television executives have stated
publicly that skipping commercials is comparable to theft. The EFF filed the
lawsuit to ensure the consumer voice was heard in the digital-video recorder
debate. Fred von Lohmann, an EFF attorney said, "The point we want to make
here to Hollywood is, when it comes to television, we're not in their movie
theatres - they're in our living rooms."

[SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Nick Wingfield]
<http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1023398010499260640,00.html?mod=technolo
gy_main_whats_news>

See Also:
REPLAY TV USERS SUE FOR RIGHT TO SKIP COMMERCIALS
[SOURCE: USA Today, AUTHOR: Reuters]
<http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/06/06/replaytv-sue.htm>


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