Fox And Dish Network Resolve Ad-Skip Dispute, Agreeing To 7-Day Delay

Dish Network subscribers won’t be able to use their Hopper DVRs anymore to automatically skip past ads on new shows that air on Fox owned or affiliated stations.

The companies just settled their multi-year legal dispute over the technology. And as a part of that deal the “AutoHop commercial-skipping functionality will not be available for owned and affiliated Fox stations until seven days after a program first airs,” the companies say in a joint statement.

The agreement covers disputes involving “Slingbox technology and the AutoHop, PrimeTime Anytime and Transfers features.” It’s part of a stipulated dismissal of the case that Fox brought in 2012 against Dish at the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. (Read it here.)

In December 2014 Dish made a similar deal with CBS to disable the AutoHop ad-skipping feature for shows out less than a week.

Fox alleged that the AutoHop technology infringed on its copyrights and breached the terms of its carriage deal with Dish. The No. 2 satellite company countered that it was a consumer-friendly change that merely automated the ad skipping that consumers already do with their remote controls.

The settlement comes a little more than a year after Dish and Fox put the case on hold while they worked on a carriage deal to replace the one that expired in October.

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