Posts with tag legal
Posted May 26th 2007 10:41AM by Brad Linder
Filed under: PVR Wire, TiVo
Looks like Forgent could be in for another unpleasant court battle. The other day, we told you that Forgent had
lost its patent lawsuit against EchoStar. Forgent claims that pretty much every major personal video recorder on the market is violating its patent for computer controlled video systems that can play and record at the same time.
While a number of companies have reached out of court settlements with Forgent, EchoStar fought it out in court and won. TiVo's going a step further, and suing Forgent before the company can sue TiVo.
On May 17th,
TiVo filed suit asking for a ruling showing that TiVo's technology does not infringe on Forgent's patent. While it might look like the move is a reaction to the EchoStar ruling, TiVo filed its lawsuit about a week before the courts ruled in that case.
Forgent says it's made about $28 million from settlements with other PVR companies, but almost half of that money was eaten up by legal costs.
[via
TiVo Lovers]
Posted Apr 10th 2007 11:06AM by Brad Linder
Filed under: PVR Wire
Look, there was absolutely zero doubt that Cablevision was going to appeal the
federal court decision barring the cable service provider from rolling out its remote-storage PVR plan. But now that
they've filed their appeal, the news is showing up in more newspapers and blogs than the original ruling.
So let's review. Cablevision wants to allow users to record, pause, rewind, and fast-forward live television. But rather than sticking a box with a hard drive in the customer's living room, Cablevision proposed having a bank of hard drives in a central location.
Continue reading Cablevision appeals network PVR ruling
Posted Apr 5th 2007 5:41PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Music and Variety, Celebrities
Here's how it all went down:
Paris Hilton taped a "funny" sketch on MTV (the article doesn't specify which show it was for) that showed her wearing a "What Would Paris Do" bracelet and taking the bracelet's advice by dancing with a cop to get out of a ticket. The segment was taped in January. The following month, Hilton was arrested for driving on a suspended license, and now she's threatening to sue MTV if they air the clip, which was meant to mock her drunk driving arrest from last September.
To summarize: Paris felt it was okay to mock her own drunk driving, but now that she's been arrested again the sketch is no longer funny but embarrassing. I would think she'd be more embarrassed by endangering the lives of other motorists by getting behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated, but what the heck do I know?
Posted Feb 5th 2007 5:32PM by Julia Ward
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, FOX, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Animation
Back in July,
Richard gave you the scoop on comedian Brian Froud's theater show
Swiss Family Guy Robinson. Froud's one-man act is essentially a staged mash-up of Johann Rudolf Wyss' 1812 novel and Seth MacFarlane's animated series. Froud's show was a hit at Toronto's Fringe Festival, but his chances of ever staging the show again are slim to none.
Fox has slapped Froud with a cease-and-desist order for unauthorized use of
Family Guy characters.
Continue reading Fox issues cease-and-desist order to Swiss Family Guy Robinson
Posted Jan 31st 2007 3:28PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Celebrities, FX
I guess this means
Help Me Help You is officially canceled (it has been on 'hiatus'
since mid-December). Ted Danson has signed on to a legal thriller alongside Glenn Close. Danson will play a corporate executive "involved in a class-action lawsuit brought on by a high-stakes litigator", played by Close. If the untitled series gets picked up by FX, Danson has agreed to the entire first season.
Danson and Close have starred together in a drama before. They starred together in Something About Amelia, a 1984 made-for-TV movie that got them both nominated for Emmys and won Danson a Golden Globe.
Posted Nov 7th 2006 7:39PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, CBS, Industry
CBS swears it's trying to
get away from procedurals, but I just don't believe them.
The Hollywood Reporter says the network has ordered a pilot for a law drama, produced by Barry Schindel (
Numb3rs) and powerhouse movie producers Ridley and Tony Scott. The untitled show is about "the lives, relationships, cases and careers of a team of public defenders." Sounds like NBC's failed
Conviction, but on the other side of the table.
Schindel pitched a similar show, called
Law Dogs, to NBC in 2003 but it didn't even get a pilot order. Schindel says he never gave up, that this is "a show that needed to be done."
Posted Oct 6th 2006 7:55AM by Michael Canfield
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, CBS, OpEd, Shark
(S01E03) The wife of a prominent heart surgeon goes missing and Sebastian Stark's "High Profile Crimes Unit" is on the case. Jeri Ryan as D.A. Devilin is discovered to have sweeping legal powers, when we see her vouch for Stark, who's allowed to set off the metal detector at the courthouse without being searched by deputies, or even take off his big fat Rolex. She'd be handy to have around at the airport.
Continue reading Shark: Dr. Feelbad
Posted Sep 26th 2006 2:33PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, FOX, Industry
David E. Kelley, TV Warrior, is all kinds of busy these days. He is working with FOX on a new comedy about a group of jurors who are sequestered in a motel during a high-profile trial. The network has committed to shoot a pilot of the untitled show. He also recently supervised another comedy pilot for FOX, called
Five Finger Discount, and he created a half-hour spin-off of
The Practice for star Camryn Manheim. However, his top priority these days is
Life on Mars, a sci-fi drama he's creating for ABC (based on the British version). Oh, and he's married to Michelle Pfeiffer.
Posted Jul 16th 2006 1:03PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Industry, Web
I've mentioned the recent kerfuffle surrounding YouTube, copyright, and other assorted legal mumbo jumbo
before, but being a layman I can't really speak about such things with any real authority. Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation has an informative piece in the
Hollywood Reporter about YouTube and its rights and responsibilities when it comes to copyrighted material. It's an interesting read, but what jumped out at me, and also jumped out at Amid over at
Cartoon Brew, is Lohmann's statement that content owners who remove "noninfringing content" could be sued by either YouTube or its users, an idea that adds a whole new dimension to this ongoing discussion. Check out the article
here.
Posted May 3rd 2006 1:03PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, ABC, Industry, Programming, Boston Legal
It doesn't get the best ratings on
television, but it's a good show and has buzz, so ABC is giving Boston Legal
a
third season. Creator and writer David E. Kelley has another show coming up on ABC too, next year, titled
Life
On Mars.
You know, I've never seen one episode of
Boston Legal, even though I watched a few
eps of
The Practice (until it got a little silly), I'm from the Boston area, and I'm a big fan of both James
Spader and William Shatner. Weird.
Posted Feb 26th 2006 1:03PM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, CBS, Talent
I may have just died and gone to heaven. I'm only
speculating here, because
The Hollywood Reporter didn't exactly say for sure, but it's a pretty good bet that
Alan Tudyk and Joshua Jackson have been cast in the same drama that's being created for CBS. Earlier this month,
I reported on Jackson landing the
lead in a Carol Mendelsohn law drama about a young lawyer whose career takes a turn when he takes a death row case.
The Hollywood
Reporter is now saying that Alan Tudyk (aka 'Wash' in
Firefly) has been cast "in CBS' untitled
Carol Mendelsohn drama". It describes the show as being about brilliant legal minds and that Tudyk will play
"a competitive and arrogant Ivy League graduate." That sounds like the same show to me. Now, if only David
Duchovny would join the cast.
Twilight Vs. Roswell: Are aliens more romantic than vampires? - VIDEO
Why do series finales have to be so final?
Spoilers Anonymous
