By John Kell
Dish Network Corp. won another legal victory in its dispute with
Fox Broadcasting Co. over Dish's "Hopper" digital video recorder's
ad-skipping and automatic recording features.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously denied
Fox Broadcasting's petition to rehear a federal appeals court's
July decision that also ruled in favor of Dish. That appeals court
ruling upheld a lower court's ruling that denied a request by Fox
for the features of the Hopper to be shut down.
Fox is a unit of 21st Century Fox Inc., which, until late June,
was part of the same company as News Corp, the parent of this
newswire and The Wall Street Journal.
The features of the Hopper, released by Dish in 2012, allow
customers to enable automatic recording of broadcast network
programming and automatic ad skipping on those recorded shows.
Several broadcasters ended up suing Dish, claiming copyright
infringement.
"We are disappointed in the decision but recognize that
preliminary injunctions are rarely overturned on appeal," Fox
Broadcasting said, in a statement. "This ruling was based on a
factual record from more than a year ago. Now that we have gathered
more evidence, we are confident that we will ultimately prevail on
all of our claims."
For its part, Dish called the ruling "a victory" for
consumers.
Write to John Kell at john.kell@wsj.com
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