Cablevision wins on appeal: remote DVR lawful after all

Cablevision wins on appeal: remote DVR lawful after all


Does it matter where a DVR's hard drive lives? Hardware from outfits such as TiVo records shows onto a local disk, but the cable provider Cablevision decided to dispense with dedicated hardware and a local drive, and instead it rolled out a service where users could record shows through their existing cable box; those recordings stayed on a remote server in the central office for storage and playback.


There's little doubt that the copies that end up in the users' storage space are copyrighted material, but the question here revolves around who "owns" that copy. The court notes that the hardware is provided by Cablevision but used by others to make the copies, and it says that "mere ownership" of the hardware does not establish liability.