Cablevision has found some friends in the network DVR case which it lost earlier this year in court: Several trade bodies and lobby groups, including USTelecom, which represents AT&T and Verizon, the Consumer Electronics Association, CTIA, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation jointly filed an Amicus brief in support of Cablevision’s appeal against a ruling that prohibits the launch of the service, reports Reuters. The brief was filed on Friday at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.

Cablevision had hoped a network-based DVR system, called Remote Storage DVR or RS-DVR, would have done away with the need for the installation digital set-top boxes in subscribers’ homes, and instead the storage would be on the cable company’s end. Other cable operators had been vocal in their support for such a system, but till now had not jumped into it for fear of such legal reprisal.

According to the brief: “Network-based services may prove to be both cheaper and technologically superior, providing better service at reduced costs to consumers. But these benefits that many consumers now take for granted could disappear if this District Court decision is not overturned or significantly revised….The District Court’s decision could chill technological progress aimed at providing consumers the best and most flexible solutions for delivering the video content they want.” Essentially it says Cablevision is only providing the technology, so not liable for copyright infringments, if you can call it that in the first place. The brief asked the court not to regard transient copies of programming, carried on Cablevision’s servers for less than a second, as full copies as meant within the Copyright Act.

PDF of the full 47-page brief in support of Network DVR is here. The release from USTA here.

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