Cablevision Systems Corp won a landmark copyright appeal, as the three-judge panel of the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals said that its DVR-like system does not amount to an illegal rebroadcast of copyrighted content. The Motion Picture Association of America and several acolytes sued the company, alleging that, because is using its remote servers to provide the service, Cablevision stores performs recorded works.

The appeal overturns a previous decision by a US District Court taken last year. However, the MPAA will not give up without taking the fight to the bitter end. Hopefully, the next courts will rule as the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals and against the fake accusations brought by the industry against Cablevision.

The latest ruling explained that the technical basis on which the previous court found Cablevision guilty is, in fact, bogus. Cablevision's buffering, of approximately 1.2 seconds, cannot be made equivalent to a real standalone copy. Previous rulings have already established that temporary copies cannot be considered illegal due to their transitory function. Otherwise, any kind of backup would be considered an infringement (like backing up your system on tape or other media).

The retransmission to the specific user's cable box, also, cannot really be considered "public," the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel found, dismissing another argument brought by the plaintiffs. The RS-DVR transmission can be decoded exclusively by that subscriber's cable box.

Cablevision is backed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The case will probably reach the Supreme Court.

In May, Cablevision Systems Corp announced its plans to purchase Sundance Channel for a total of $496 million.