Company's ad-skipping feature breaches copyright, US broadcasters claim

Broadcasters CBS, Fox and NBCUniversal claim Dish makes unauthorised copies of its content in order to allow its subscribers to skip ads that appear alongside the programmes they show. Dish denies that its technology is illegal and has said that it can only be used to skip ads on shows recorded by viewers.

"NBC has filed suit against this unlawful service in order to keep over-the-air broadcast television a strong competitor," NBCUniversal said, according to a report by the Hollywood Reporter. "Advertising generates the revenue that makes it possible for local broadcast stations and national broadcast networks to pay for the creation of the news, sports and entertainment programming that are the hallmark of American broadcasting." 

"Dish simply does not have the authority to tamper with the ads from broadcast replays on a wholesale basis for its own economic and commercial advantage," it added.

Fox said Dish's 'PrimeTime Anytime' service "makes an unauthorized copy of the entire primetime broadcast schedule for all four major networks every night" and allows customers to skip ads shown alongside the programmes using its 'AutoHop' technology, according to the Hollywood Reporter. 

Fox also claimed Dish's 'Sling Adapter' service " redistributes and streams Fox's programming over the Internet in violation of copyright law and Dish's agreements with Fox" and that by doing so it is competing "unfairly" with iTunes, Amazon and other "licensed providers".

CBS added that Dish is acting in "clear violation of copyright law". 

Under the US' Copyright Act the owners of copyrighted material have the exclusive rights over reproduction of their works and over the distribution of copies of those works to the public.

On 10 May Dish introduced 'AutoHop' as an option for its pay-TV subscribers. The company has itself launched a counter lawsuit against the three broadcasters and ABC asking for a "declaratory judgment that the AutoHop feature does not infringe any copyrights" and that providing the feature has not led it to breach "its agreements with the networks," according to a statement issued by the company.

"The lawsuits filed by the networks essentially argue that 'consumers must watch commercials'," Dave Shull, senior vice president of programming for Dish, said in a statement. "We find that proposition absurd and profoundly anti-consumer."

"Customers have been skipping commercials since the birth of the remote control, and the networks are arguing against that fact. Taken to the extreme, will the networks next ask consumers to stop changing channels? Collectively, the networks reap billions in retransmission fees – fees that are reflected in subscribers' growing bills. For their money, consumers deserve to use content they pay for as they wish."

"AutoHop needs to be put in perspective: the majority of our viewers watch their primetime shows live or during the same evening – the time that is most valuable to advertisers. We chose to incorporate AutoHop as a next day feature and only if enabled by the consumer," Shull said.