Another Tivo Ruling and More...

Another ruling came out today from the US District Court in Texas in the Tivo -vs- Dish Network case and the ruling has to be one that both sides are not happy about.

In his ruling the Honorable Judge David Folsom ordered that Dish Network pay Tivo $2.25 a month that Dish Network has been in contempt for a total of $200 million. Tivo can’t be happy as they were seeking $1 billion in damages and Dish Network can’t be happy as they have to pay yet again to Tivo.

But even though they were ordered to pay $200 million there was a ray of sunshine in the judges ruling that noted “the Court declines to find that EchoStar’s contempt has been willful.” This ruling will greatly help Dish Network in their appeal.

Dish Network issued the following statement after the judges ruling came out.

“We are pleased that the district court rejected Tivo’s request to award a billion dollars in sanctions and that it found that any violation of the injunction was not willful. While we disagree that any amount of sanctions was warranted, the decision confirms our belief that we designed around Tivo’s patent in good faith. We believe that we ultimately will prevail on appeal.”

This one is far from being over folks, and just think Tivo is going to have to repeat this process again as they are now suing AT&T and Verizon as well.

Grounding Fees?

Grounding Fees?

A lot of towns and cities around the country are hurting for money, many of them are coming up with creative ideas to raise revenues for town and cities but here is one idea that I hope does not catch on.

The city of Omaha, Nebraska is looking to raise revenue wherever they can and do to the rumored coaxing of the towns cable company they think they might have found themselves a goldmine. The city plans to start charging residents a $50 fee per dish to make sure that it is grounded and installed properly. It is assumed that Omaha is its surrounding outskirts have over 40,000 satellite dishes in place, which could bring the city over $2 million in the first year.

According to details the satellite dishes would need to meet electrical and structural safety standards and wind-resistance rules.

The $50 fee would be for each dish on the property and would be good for a 3 year term, upon the dishes again would need to be reinspected (for another $50 fee per dish of course.)

While federal law prohibits cities from taxing satellite customers, there is nothing in the book preventing cities for charging inspection fees.

Many eyes are now on Omaha to see where this one goes, this one has been written into the 2010 budget and a public hearing on the matter will be held on September 15th.

Free “Best of Sirius”

From now until September 17th XM Subscribers will be getting “The Best of Sirius” package as part of a free sneak preview.

This free preview will include all the play by play action of the NFL, all the racing action of the NASCAR channel plus other Sirius channels such as the two Howard Stern Channels and Playboy Radio. For more details on the “Best of Sirius” free preview for XM Subscribers please checkout xmradio.com.

DirecTV replaces Versus

The fight between DirecTV and Versus continues on. Today DirecTV replaced the slate on the removed Versus channel and replaced it with NBC’s Universal Sports. The addition of Universal Sports appears to be temporary as DirecTV is advertising that the channel will be carried through the end of the month.