FTA FREE To Air ABA Dss Blog

Satellite TV providers Dish Network and DirecTV are no doubt excited about a recent Supreme Court Ruling. The decision overruled a Kentucky law allowing local governments to tax satellite TV.
A joint statement from the satellite companies released on Friday said, “DIRECTV and DISH Network applaud the Kentucky Supreme Court’s unanimous decision today to strike down the Kentucky law allowing local governments to tax satellite TV.
“The decision is a resounding affirmation of federal law that was designed to promote competition by preventing local governments from imposing unfair taxes on satellite TV service. In addition to promoting competition, Congress imposed the prohibition because it believed it was inappropriate to impose burdensome taxes on national TV services that beam their signals directly to homes from satellites and, unlike cable TV services, do not use or impact public property.

John Eggerton

Satellite carriers would be able to put local TV station HD signals on a separate dish, according to a new draft of the Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act.
That is one of a few changes to the original June 12 draft of the bill. The latest draft still does not address getting local-into-local service to the remaining un-served markets-about 30-or delivering adjacent-market signals to so-called short or split markets. But that could all change when the bill is marked up Thursday.
The newest version says that a satellite operator can import a high-definition, distant-signal network affiliated TV station so long as it also carries the HD version-where supplied-of the local affiliate of that network. The bill requires all local stations to be carried on the same antenna, but says that the HD versions can be on a separate antenna, which was not part of the original draft.
The new draft also has additional language about how the FCC determines who qualifies for a distant signal.
The commission must come up with a new predictive model since the current one is based on a grade B analog signal that no longer exists for digital stations.
In the new draft, if a subscriber wants to challenge a determination that they are ineligible to receive a distant signal, the satellite operator and local station must pick a third party to test for signal strength. The test has to be conducted within 30 days and if it confirms that the signal does not meet the FCC’s new standard, the subscriber gets their distant signal.
SHVERA essentially renews satellite operators’ blanket license to retransmit distant network signals to subscribers who cannot get a sufficiently strong in-market affiliate of the same network.
House Communications Subcommittee chairman Rick Boucher (D-Va.) is hoping for the satellite and local TV sides to get together on a deal to deliver local TV signals to those remaining 30 markets without local-into-local, which include his own, chiefly rural, district.
But he also wants a bill free from potentially contentious issues since the bill must be reauthorized by the end of the year to prevent the blanket license from expiring.
It is still unclear whether the short-market or split-market issues will wind up in the bill. The first is delivering adjacent-market stations to markets that lack one or more affiliates. The other is delivering them to markets that cross state lines, so that viewers in, say, Arkansas don’t have to watch local TV news and sports from Tennessee.
Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark) has, for several years, been pushing a bill that would allow cable and satellite operators to import adjacent-market signals.
Some version of that bill could be amended to the draft. A spokesperson for Ross said they were still negotiating on the issue.

In a long-running patent infringement dispute with DISH Network Corp. and EchoStar Corp., set-top box maker TiVo Inc. was awarded an additional $103-million in damages plus interest, by a federal judge in Texas Tuesday.
TiVo, already the recipient of a 2006 jury award for $104-million in damages and lost profits, due to infringement of its digital video recorder technology patents that allow viewers to pause, rewind, instantly replay or play back any live broadcast by recording it onto a hard drive, has been involved in long-running litigation as it struggles to keep its competitive advantage in the rapidly changing TV set-top market.
As for EchoStar, it may have to pay additional damages later this summer by implementing new ‘work-around’ technology TiVo claimed still infringed, a direct violation of the injunction the judge placed following the jury verdict.
The legal dispute between the two dates back to 2004, when TiVo charged satellite TV provider EchoStar’s DISH network system of violating TiVo’s ‘Time Warp’ software patent that makes it possible for users to watch one programme, even while they record another.
Despite the verdict, EchoStar continued to distribute digital video recorders (DVRs), collecting subscription fees for millions of DVRs with the ‘work-around’ software.
Ruling in TiVo’s favour on the ‘work-around’ issue, U. S. District Judge David Folsom ordered EchoStar to disable an infringing function on all, but 193,000 subscriber DVRs, including informing the court before attempting to implement another ‘work-around’ patent infringement. However, Dish customers with digital recording devices won’t be affected by the ruling, immediately.
In their statement, DISH, formerly known as EchoStar Communications Corp. and EchoStar say, the court’s decision will be appealed against in a federal appeal court and a motion filed to stay the order.
TiVo shares shot up 38% after-hours.

By William McQuillen and Susan Decker

Bloomberg News

Dish Network was ordered by a federal judge to stop using a digital video recording service that infringes a TiVo patent.
Dish and EchoStar were also told to pay $192.7 million to TiVo in damages and interest as their software still infringes TiVo’s patent even after Dish had claimed it made changes to the product, U.S. Judge David Folsom said in an order Tuesday.
The new products were the same as the previous, leaving Dish and EchoStar in contempt of an earlier ban, Folsom wrote.
“The harm caused to TiVo by EchoStar’s contempt is substantial,” wrote Folsom, who oversaw the hearing in Texarkana, Texas, in February. “EchoStar has gained millions of customers since this court’s injunction was issued, customers that are now potentially unreachable by TiVo.”
The judge refused to further delay his order, saying “EchoStar has escaped this court’s injunction for over two years and further delay will be manifestly unjust to TiVo.” He said he would consider later how much Dish and EchoStar should pay for contempt of his order.
San Jose-based TiVo, the pioneer of digital video recorders, had won a trial and appeals court ruling that the Dish service violates its patent for technology that lets users record a TV program and play it back at the same time to allow, for example, instant replay or pausing.
“We are extremely gratified by the court’s well reasoned and thorough decision, in which it rejected EchoStar’s attempted
workaround claim regarding the TiVo patent, found EchoStar to be in contempt of court and ordered the permanent injunction fully enforced,” TiVo said in a statement.
Dish and EchoStar have said they began developing “a novel DVR” after a Texas jury ruled in 2006 that older versions of their software violated the TiVo patent.
Englewood, Colo.-based Dish, the nation’s second-largest satellite-television provider behind DirecTV Group, and EchoStar said changes were made that work around TiVo’s so-called “time warp” patent.
Dish and EchoStar said they would appeal the ruling and seek a stay with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.

sorry, dish network, but wall street doesn’t seem to love you like it used to.

On tuesday, collins stewart analyst tom eagan cut his fiscal year 2009 estimate for the dbs provider, saying that he does not see “a sustainable turn-around in sight.” eagan cited dish’s lackluster first quarter results and a potentially damaging decision in the company’s tivo lawsuit in the decision.

Eagan said he now expects dish to lose some 417,000 net subscribers this year, up from the 392,000 sub losses he had previously predicted, and report earnings of around $3.06 billion. The analyst had been expecting dish to bring in about $3.16 billion this year, but falling subscriber numbers have eaten away at that revenue base.

The united states and canada adopted an agreement tuesday to allow law enforcement authorities of both nations to share personnel and cross the border more easily to fight human, drug and weapon smuggling on waterways that separate them.

Homeland security secretary janet napolitano and canadian minister of public safety peter van loan met to formally sign the pact at a cargo facility at the ambassador bridge, which connects detroit and windsor, ontario.

The agreement, known as the shiprider program, allows officers from the royal canadian mounted police and u.s. Coast guard to ride each others’ vessels for joint patrols and specific enforcement operations.

Vessels have been required to stop at the border and call the other nation’s agencies for help, but the pact allows ships carrying joint enforcement teams to operate in each country’s territory.

The signing gives u.s. And canadian officials the authority to train each other’s officers and establish the program permanently. During a 57-day pilot program in 2007, the joint effort led to the seizure of contraband cigarettes, marijuana and the recovery of an abducted child, van loan said.

The move came less than a week before new border-crossing rules take effect. The western hemisphere travel initiative, which starts monday, tightens documentation rules for entry into the u.s. From canada, requiring everyone to have passports or special driver’s licenses.

Napolitano said one reason for her visit was to review preparations for the new rules. She said she understands concerns the change could impede travel and trade, and she is working “to make sure the law … Is implemented as smoothly and efficiently as possible.”

napolitano said boosting security “doesn’t mean closing ourselves off from other countries – it means working together as neighbors and allies.” she said the agreement promotes security while preserving commerce and each nation’s sovereignty.

“we have to be able to share information … And put more security at the border, which helps us keep track of what is going back and forth,” she said. “these new measures ultimately are part of our joint battle against those who would seek to harm us.”

van loan said people who say there must be a trade-off between security and trade “are simply wrong.”

“because of the integration of our north american economies … Effective management of the border is essential to the health of both of our countries’ economies,” he said.

The two officials also toured port operations on both sides of the border, and napolitano is scheduled to meet with van loan and other canadian officials in ottawa on wednesday