Mgoren Thought Paper 1

Although no lawsuit has yet materialized, many people have questioned the legality of the Slingbox.

Capitol Broadcasting president Jim Goodmon suggests that the Slingbox retransmits copyrighted content without consent. This argument is irrelevant due to the fact that the retransmission is performed by users for their own personal use. The Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. v. iCraveTV case does not apply, because Sling Media does not make or enable public performances. Transmissions are private and encrypted. According to Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., time-shifting for personal use is permitted. RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia cites Sony and extends that decision to establish the legality of space-shifting for personal use. “The Rio merely makes copies in order to render portable, or ‘space-shift,’ those files that already reside on a user's hard drive. Cf. Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417, 455 (1984) (holding that ‘time-shifting’ of copyrighted television shows with VCR’s constitutes fair use under the Copyright Act, and thus is not an infringement). Such copying is paradigmatic non-commercial personal use entirely consistent with the purposes of the Act.” Diamond, 98-56727 (10).

Unlike Grokster in MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., Sling Media does not induce infringement. Furthermore, Sling Media takes affirmative steps to discourage infringement – limiting remote access to a Slingbox to one connection at a time, for example. Consequently, Sling Media is not liable for contributory infringement. Furthermore, even if Sling Media has knowledge that some customers use the Slingbox to infringe, the product clearly meets the Sony “commercially significant noninfringing uses” test.

The federal district court decision in Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. v. Cablevision Systems Corp. is worrying but ultimately vindicates Sling Media. The court ruled that Cablevision’s remote storage DVR infringes copyrights because, unlike a VCR, it operates as a “service” rather than a “device.” “Cablevision has physical control of the equipment at its head-end, and its personnel must monitor the programming streams at the head-end and ensure that the servers are working properly.” Cablevision, 06 Civ. 3990. Unlike Cablevision, Sling Media does not control most of the relevant equipment, nor does the company store or monitor copyrighted media content. The Slingbox acts more like a VCR than a service. Sling Media’s back-end simply connects users to their home Slingboxes.

Separately, the judge in Cablevision also suggests that incidental buffering of copyrighted content may be illegal. However, all buffering in Sling Media’s system seems to take place at the ends, not on Sling Media’s network or servers. Consequently, this should qualify as personal use. Time- and space-shifting inherently require copying, but the Slingbox differs from Cablevision’s RS-DVR in that the copying happens at the ends, and Sling Media is not intimately involved in the process.

--I apologize if citations are incorrectly formatted. I'm not a law student, so I'm not familiar with the citation style. I'll happily accept feedback. --mgoren 11:26, 4 April 2008 (EDT)