DISH GETS MIXED RULING FROM JUDGE ON AD-SKIPPING FEATURE

The DISH satellite service won a partial victory Wednesday in its legal battle with ABC. A federal district court in New York rejected a request by the television network to issue an injunction barring DISH’s “Hopper” DVR, which allows viewers to skip commercials automatically on TV shows they have recorded. ABC and the other broadcast networks claim that the Hopper recorders violate their copyright. However, U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied DISH’s motion to set aside a lawsuit by CBS that claims DISH concealed its plans for the Hopper when the two companies negotiated a distribution agreement in 2011. CBS claims that it would not have signed the agreement had it known about the Hopper feature, and it now wants to void it.