DISH loses. Now what?

It would appear that DISH has finally lost its long running legal battle with Tivo.

Clearly, if, as a matter of law, DISH now has to take away most of the DVR functionality in their boxes, then they would cease to exist as a company very quickly. There would be a mass exodus to DirecTV and or digital cable.

So, assuming that DISH has no intention of going out of business, what are their options here? Do they do a deal with their nemisis and start providing Tivo boxes to us?

I'd be interested to hear the opinions of some of the people with their ear to the ground here.

Dish already removed any software due to infringment, what is there now will be staying. All receivers that were name have either had their software changed or have be disconnected.

Dish already removed any software due to infringment, what is there now will be staying. All receivers that were name have either had their software changed or have be disconnected.


Then I don't understand this statement, Gary?


by Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 6/17/2009 2:02:13 PM MT
Dish Network said in a court filing Monday that it is looking into developing another workaround for a patent owned by TiVo, as the satellite company awaits a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals on whether it would be forced to comply with an order to disable some 4 million of its DVRs.

Dish, in a one-sentence filing in the U.S District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, said it "is investigating other potential design-around options, but at this stage, does not know whether a further design-around is even possible."

Thats 4 million pissed off customers....

I think DISH has 3 choices. 1)Go out of business. 2)Pay Tivo a LOT of money in order to continue to use their patent. 3)Do a deal with Tivo to replace the current DISH DVRs with Tivo boxes.

Since Dish appealed, was granted such and a stay on turning off the infringing DVR's, who knows what the future holds.

The 625 DVR is what I am guessing the battle is over, if so that is the best DVR I ever used and installed in the field. Maybe they can go into a contract like Comcast did with TIVO. I have two TIVO HD boxes from Comcast and I like them a lot...

JEFF

It's time for Charlie to check his ego at the door and sign a deal with Tivo to either legally use their patent or to install Tivo DVRs.

Does this affect *all* Dish DVR's or just some?

I have the 622 ... is it affected?

Are we seriously looking at them being 'turned off' ... or just losing the ability to pause live TV?

Thanks

Lee

Does this affect *all* Dish DVR's or just some?

I have the 622 ... is it affected?

Are we seriously looking at them being 'turned off' ... or just losing the ability to pause live TV?

Thanks

Lee

NO, all of the HD DVR's have been worked around so as to not infringe. In fact not too long ago, Dish exchanged any infringing HD DVR for new ones/different models that were not infringing.

Its still a kick in the teeth for Dish network. And its gonna cost them in the wallet what ever they do. But I suspect that paying TIVO royalties will be their cheapest option.

And its all well and fine to talk about the competitive situation Dish is in when we talk about the bulk of the population, who can pick and choose between Dish, Direct TV, and other companies that can deliver high bandwidth content via coax cable, or offshoots of fiber optic with only the last bit coming through phone lines. But when we talk about small dish satellite delivery for folks in the sticks, still a market of many 10's of millions, there are only 2 major players, Dish and Direct TV. So if Dish goes belly up, Direct TV is likely to raise prices in a less competitive market.

And as read the Dish and Direct TV sections of these forums, Satellite customers seemed to have flocked to Direct TV as the Cadillac brand, and instead of trying to grab the low price al carte section of the market, Dish management seems dedicated to competing with Direct TV on sheer bloat volume of content with prices to match. Losing the lawsuit with Tivo means either Direct TV will have increasing difficulties delivering satellite style recording or that they must raise prices.

Its been Six years since I dropped Dish because I could not choose what programming I got and did not get, Maybe its time for Charlie to swallow his ego, drop the programming packages only option, he may may not make as much profit per customer, but he could gain many many new customers if he did.

NO, all of the HD DVR's have been worked around so as to not infringe. In fact not too long ago, Dish exchanged any infringing HD DVR for new ones/different models that were not infringing.

Ah .... thanks! 'Cos everything here works quite well now. Hope it stays that way!

Best

Lee

I have the VIP 722. The main reason I wnt with Dish was the added HD hard drive space over Direct. My contract is up and I got a loyal customer reward that I can use for an additional 24 month contract. $10 off for 12 months, HBO and Showtime free for 3 months. I'm really afraid to commit for 24 months if Dish is going to loose the TIVO battle with the VIP 722 DVR This all seems so silly. It has cost Dish millions and left us all in limbo.

I'm affraid now to sign up for another 24 months to get a loyalty deal of $10 of for 12 months. I have the VIP 722 DVR. I love it and took dish over direct because of the larger Hard Drive.

So if the VIP's are not infringing we are OK, why then did this silly thing go to court? What a waste of money since dish lost and has to pay millions. I want to extend for another 24 months and get a loyalty deal but I am worried they may loose over the VIP 722 and dish with out a DVR is out of the question.

ViP's were not included in the TiVo suit.

If TiVo wants to go after the ViP receivers, they must go through an entire new trial and appeals process, maybe another 5+ years, by then Dish will have moved on to other technology we cannot dream of today.

I suspect victory is sweet for Tivo at this point, maybe bitter-sweet as I think even with this setback DN's future is still the one with a brighter future.

I love my TiVos, they are great for what they do, but TiVo screwed up badly when they left the OTA tuner out of the latest stand alone version of their SD boxes and when my older 240 model died, BB could not fix or replace it with the identical model so I had to settle for a cable tuner model with one set of composite/s-video inputs seriously limiting the flexibility of the SD box.

I use it with a digital converter box now, but even an SD digital tuner would have been nice.

Classic shooting yourself in the foot.

what a waste of money since dish lost and has to pay million!

Anyone heard any more info on this?

Since then, the Court of Appeals has stayed the contempt citation and the Patent Office has preliminarily reversed the validity of the pertinent parts of TiVo's patent.


And the beat goes on...