Good news for users of the Ice TV electronic program guide — the company has won its latest court battle against Channel Nine, meaning that it is free to keep listing the free-to-air TV giant in its schedules.
Channel Nine sued Ice TV for copyright infringement back in 2006. It won the first round in 2007, but Channel Nine appealed and was successful in 2008. Ice TV in turn appealed, and has now won a favourable ruling from the High Court.
The copyright argument has long stymied the development of decent electronic program guides (EPGs) in Australia, so this hopefully might spell an eventual end to the madness, though Freeview’s apparent determination to stop other set-top boxes accessing its forthcoming guide suggests that stupidity might still reign for a while. But we still want a comprehensive, free, open EPG at some point. Please?
malkers
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 11:34 AMHigh Court Judgement at:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2009/14.html
Dracs
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 11:59 AMw00t :D, hopefully this will allow Tivo to start releasing guide data for Foxtel now.
Craig Baldie
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 12:55 PMas an IceTV subscriber this is great news
AJ
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 3:20 PMThis is just as stupid as CityRail claiming copyright over their train timetables.
Television Watcher
Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 1:21 PMHasn’t anybody noticed that you do not have to pay $99 per year to get an electronic guide service?
Free Australian EPG services such as “www.oztivo.net” and “www.epgstream.net” let users load the TV guides into any number of computer devices.
There are many free or cheap services, but for some reason people think paying $99 per year is “normal”! Funny that …