Following a legal battle which spanned several years between Dish and TiVo, the courts have decided that Dish's actions are worthy of a fairly harsh penalty. All in all, the company will be forking over $103 million in cash to TiVo, along with interest accrued over the past several years. Further, it will be required to disable some functions on millions of digital video recorders used by its subscribers within the next 30 days.
The fine comes on top of the $105 million Dish, then called EchoStar Communications Corp., had already paid through April 2008. The company of course disagrees with the decision and plans to appeal. Things haven't looked good for them in some time, though, and many believe they would be better off striking a licensing pact. This is great news for TiVo, who no longer owns the entire DVR market, and even with this judgment is operating in a much different market they were five years ago. Dish customers, on the other hand, are at risk of losing DVR functionality in their set-top boxes at least for a while.