replay tv customers bring suit

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is representing five customers of Sonicblue's ReplayTV in a suit brought in a federal district court in California.

"These Hollywood guys want to stop me from using my digital video recorder like I use my VCR, like for watching shows when I want or zipping through commercials," explained Craig Newmark, craigslist.com community founder, ReplayTV user, and plaintiff in the case. "I want to give my nephews and nieces a break from the rampant consumerism on TV by using ReplayTV's commercial skipping feature."

This replayTV seems like a great technology. The arguments being brought by the recording industry sound very much like the ones from almost twenty years ago when the VCR allowed people to record shows to watch at convenient times, and enabled them to skip over commercials. The suit is being brought in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, which is the same venue where a case brought by media groups against Sonicblue is being held. The possibility exists that the consumer case could be joined with the media case against Sonicblue.