Déjà vu

It's beating a dead horse....

I want to say that providing Com-Skip does not violate copyright, provide com-skipped program is viewed in one's private home for personal use.

It's too bad that the big bucks crushed the little guy (Sonic Blue) like a Tucker.

What will happen going forward is that content providers will simply NOT offer distribution of their programming to content distributors whose devices have Com-Skip capability.

You want your viewers to be able to skip stuff on ABC? Fine. No ABC, Disney, and ESPN for you!!! The trash heap has spoken.....

I have no feel for how much this would impact a content distributors bottom line if they could not deliver the broadcast networks plus related programming.... I thinks big impacts...

Cheers!
-Doug

Also another "Replay crushed by lawsuit" article perpetuating this myth. The CEO of Replay has said many times legal fees were insignificant in SB demise. Buying several companies (chiefly Rio) that completely collapsed was the reason SB couldn't go on and why the only thing that continued after was Replay.

Uh-huh. Sure.

Didn't the lawsuits issues start under ReplayTV not under SB? The lawsuits may have caused ReplayTV to go under, not SB.

ReplayTV was getting it's ass kicked in sales by Tivo from the start. I remember finding it so frustrating because neither company was touting using a PVR the way I did, and kept focusing on pausing live TV.

If the lawsuits weren't the main cause, they certainly didn't help.

Robert

I always thought that Replay's biggest problem was their initial business model. They had a new (to consumers) technology, but were requiring people to pay big bucks for lifetime service, up front. TiVo gave the option of paying for service monthly, which both made it much cheaper to buy and also gave consumers the equivalent of a trial period. Replay started out way behind, never caught up even after they changed the model, and the lawsuits were the last straw, IMO.

So the best technology lost out; Beta vs VHS all over again.

Other than DirectTivo, sales of the two were reasonably close. Tivo NEVER made money, but Replay was profitable, which is why it survived. And lawsuits started at the very beginning, with Replay and Tivo ending theirs as not in their best interests. When SB was sued for CS they made it manual instead of automatic.

You can promote any theory you want to invent, but the SB CEO has stated many times that lawsuits had no effect. Any time you over-pay to buy a business selling millions (RIO) that overnight goes to zero, you're going to have a problem. And SB did it with more than just that 1 product line.