Judge Rules It's Your God Given Right to Skip Commercials with a DVR

Ad-skippers of the world, rejoice! A New York judge shot down ABC's efforts to get Dish's Hopper — a DVR that lets you automatically skip ads on recorded primetime shows — off the market.

Ad-skippers of the world, rejoice! A New York judge shot down ABC's efforts to get Dish's Hopper — a DVR that lets you automatically skip ads on recorded primetime shows — off the market. The network, one of many to go after Hopper recently, sought an injunction against the DVR, but in a ruling released Wednesday U.S. District Judge Laura Swain denied that request. Also, it's 2013, and we shouldn't have to watch Cialis ads if we don't want to. A similar appeal from 21st Century Fox failed in Los Angeles federal appeals court earlier this summer.

But while all this is good news for TV watchers, Dish didn't get off so easy. The judge also turned down Dish's request to dismiss charges from CBS. The Eye is on Dish for not clearly explaining what the Hopper does back when the two were negotiating in 2011. Which, well... it's a DVR. Did people not have DVRs in 2011? Do the CBS executives still watch TV live, commercials and all? Even if the Hopper didn't have some sort of arcane ad-skipping magic, don't they know what a normal DVR can do anyway? Still, its a losing battle and the 'cord nevers' are disrupting the status quo. Five years from now everyone will probably just be mooching off their roommate's Netflix account and their aunt's HBO GO anyway.