said by 25139889:Actually the company pays to show it on their network. It still is free to the public who does NOT wish to pay for Dish or cable.
Except that the dispute isn't over a stand-alone DVR that works with an OTA signal, it's about a feature on a proprietary box provided by a pay-TV company. Meaning that the only people who will be using this feature are those who already pay a monthly fee to receive that programming.
Free, OTA TV watching isn't being changed at all, at least not yet. Only a paid service is changing.
said by 25139889:And when you take those ads away from OTA TV- what happens to those networks and those new shows?
Those ads are still there for OTA users. Companies may add a similar feature in the future, but so far it's only been added to a pay service.
said by 25139889:And this is more about Dish recording these shows and allowing for the ads to be skipped- that creates a copyright issue.
No it doesn't.
Copyright is exactly what it says; The right to copy. Or more accurately, the right to restrict people from copying something without authorization.
DVRs are perfectly legal to use. According to the courts, using a recording device to time-shift programming is a perfectly legal activity. Allowing people to skip commercials in no way violates copyright. The DVR isn't making extra copies, distributing copies, or altering the copies. Therefore there is no copyright issue.
This is the equivalent of suing theaters that allow people to use the restroom while the ads are playing before the start of a movie.