Cablevision Scores Copyright Victory Against Hollywood - Via Threat Level:

A federal appeals court on Monday lifted an injunction against Cablevision Systems that blocked it from offering a recording service that stored programming on the cable company's own servers instead of on an viewers' in-house recording devices.

Hollywood and television programmers alleged Cablevision’s plan would directly infringe their exclusive rights to both reproduce and publicly perform their copyrighted works.

A lower court last year agreed, and blocked the service, ruling a distribution license first was required by Cablevision.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, ruled no license was reqiured. Cablevision was not doing any of the copying, the court ruled. Instead, the appellate court ruled any copying would be done by individual customers who have that right.

The appeals court also said that, although a replay of the art was a performance, the performance was a fair-use right of customers. Hence, no license was required.

Here is a link to the 44-page opinion (.pdf).

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(Read Original Article - Via Threat Level.)