A man walks past a display of televisions in an electronics shop in a file photo. Cablevision Systems Corp. said on Tuesday it is filing an appeal of a recent U.S. court ruling barring it from launching a digital video recorder (DVR) service that stores television shows on its servers. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cablevision Systems Corp. CVC.N said on Tuesday it is filing an appeal of a recent U.S. court ruling barring it from launching a digital video recorder (DVR) service that stores television shows on its servers.
The cable operator was barred in March by the U.S. District Court in Manhattan from launching the service after it lost a suit filed by several Hollywood studios and TV networks for violating U.S. copyright laws.
Cablevision, whose founder Charles Dolan’s claim to fame was the creation of subscription TV service HBO, sought to do away with set-top DVRs by allowing viewers to record shows without installing recorders in their own homes.
The company has said that storing programs on its own servers would cut down on repair costs for DVRs, whose hard drives are prone to malfunction over time.
“Our remote-storage DVR is the same as conventional DVRs, and merely enables consumers to exercise their well-established rights to time-shift television programming,” Cablevision Chief Operating Officer Tom Rutledge said in a statement.
“We continue to believe strongly that remote-storage DVR is permissible under current copyright laws,” he added.
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