Walt Disney’s ABC, CBS and other broadcasters have sued Ivi, an online subscription service, for streaming television programmes over the Web without authorisation. The companies, also including Fox, NBC and the Public Broadcasting Service, have accused Ivi and its founder Todd Weaver of copyright infringement in a federal court complaint in New York. Ivi, based […]
The French telecommunications and broadcasting regulator has issued a warning to Paris-based satellite operator Eutelsat over ‘adult’ programming that it is carrying. The Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA) has already warned Eutelsat twice over ‘slideshow’ unencrypted erotic material. Letters went to Eutelsat on February 3rd and again on March 4 warning that the transmissions must […]
Apple is laying global claim to just about anything that uses the word ‘pod’. Apple’s busy lawyers have drawn up a 873-page legal claim over the word ‘pod’, and has already used its claims to hit a small start-up outfit, Video Labs, which has a projector device which it called a Video Pod, and to […]
The European Parliament has adopted a non-legislative report on enforcement of intellectual property rights, calling for tougher application of intellectual rights and copyright harmonisation at the EU level. Meanwhile, civil liberties activists warn that such moves would undermine fundamental freedoms in the bloc. “Online piracy is an infringement of copyright and causes serious economic damage […]
Google has won a landmark ruling in Spain successfully defending broadcaster Telecinco’s claim that it should compensate for copyrighted material posted to the YouTube video sharing website. The Madrid court threw out Telecinco’s claim, filed in June 2008, and ordered the broadcaster to pay Google’s court costs. Telecinco claimed YouTube was damaging its business […]
Ofcom says the Government has made clear that establishing Local TV in the UK is a policy priority and has set up the Shott enquiry to examine what conditions might be necessary to make Local TV commercially viable. Following discussions with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Nicholas Shott and his team, it […]
Warning emails will be sent out by mid-October to people in France who have made illegal downloads, says anti-internet piracy body Hadopi. The new authority was supposed to be ready to act in April, then June, then September, but it has been held up by legal complications. Now the body says that it has sent […]
Tom Rogers, CEO at TiVo, says its long-running legal battles with EchoStar and its Dish Network sister company will likely end in February or March 2011. The DVR manufacturer has been locked in a tight legal embrace with EchoStar since 2004 when TiVo accused satellite TV provider EchoStar’s Dish Network system of violating TiVo’s patent […]
Telus, Canada’s third-largest wireless phone company, is asking the country’s broadcast regulator to ensure rivals can’t distribute television content exclusively to their mobile subscribers. Telus is using public hearings that began this week into Shaw’s $1.9 billion purchase of Canwest Global Communications’s television assets to argue against content exclusivity. Telus, which competes with Shaw and […]
Sky Italia and Mediaset are back in their war of words with Sky CEO Tom Mockridge writing to the press to accuse Mediaset of dominating the Italian TV and arguing that “more freedom in the TV sector” was needed to encourage competition. Mockridge says Mediaset controlled 65 per cent of advertising revenue. Mediaset chairman Fedele […]