(30 June 2009 12:30 pm)

MUMBAI: The Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from broadcasters and Hollywood studios, allowing cable TV companies in the US to offer a service in which subscribers can record television programmes without having to rent or buy a separate digital video recorder (DVR).

Broadcasters and Hollywood studios had argued that such unlicensed viewing would violate their copyrights.

The specific case related to Cablevision, but would impact the cable industry as a whole. The network service DVR, as opposed to installations of such devices in individual homes, will reduce capital requirements of cable TV companies while boosting DVR deployment.

The justices declined to hear arguments that would judge on whether Cablevision’s remote-storage DVR system would violate copyright laws. Which means they conceded to Cablevision’s contention that the service should be permissible as the control of the recording and playback was in the hands of the consumer and not the cable company.

A group of TV broadcasters and film studios, including Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. and CBS, had filed the suit against Cablevision’s “remote storage DVR” in 2007.

Cable TV subscribers will now be allowed to copy and store programmes for later viewing without owning DVRs. Entertainment companies, who fear ad-skipping habits to grow, will have to find out new ways of selling TV ads.