In a filing, (pdf) the DOJ Solicitor General on Friday urged the Supreme Court not to hear a case in which the entertainment industry has sued Cablevision for use of a network DVR (or RS-DVR). The network DVR stores video content at the network head end, eliminating the need for a consumer-side set top box entirely. Cablevision tested the idea in 2006 storing 80GB of data for 1,000 trial users on their network. But the company was sued by the entertainment industry, who feared a loss of ad revenue and content control.

The entertainment industry (GE, NBC, CBS, Walt Disney, ABC; and others) saw legal success early on, but Cablevision won a key ruling from a federal appeals court in Philadelphia last summer. The case now heads to the Supreme Court, and a refusal to hear the case would in essence be a victory for Cablevision, who has previously stated their implementation of the service would provide customers with about 160GB of network-side storage for about the same price as current DVR service (around $10 per month).

Traditionally the Supreme Court doesn't always listen to the DOJ's Solicitor General, though they have been swayed by input in the past. Consumer advocates were please by the news, Public Knowledge's Gigi Sohn "wholeheartedly agreeing" with the DOJ. "Common sense would dictate that a recording is a recording, whether made on a set-top box or in a cable head-end," says Sohn "We hope the U.S. Supreme Court follows this advice and removes any legal obstacles from the Cablevision service going forward."

Should the Supreme Court hear the case and side with the entertainment industry, network functionality could be significantly less interesting for consumers, as any compromises with copyright holders could result in annoying changes such as unskippable advertisements.