Do you use the FitzyTV app to DVR your streamed content? You may have noticed that the app is no longer available on the Amazon App Store or the Google Play Store as of last year. Now FitzyTV has announced that they will be removing the ability to access TV Everywhere functionality from their services due to a “legal dispute” with Adobe.
Here is a statement from FitzyTV about the changes announced today:
As you are probably aware, FitzyTV’s apps were suspended from the app stores due to a legal dispute with Adobe, which powers the TV Everywhere system for the cable industry. Adobe is taking the position that allowing our users to watch a channel they’re allowed to watch, on a device they’re allowed to watch it on, using a username and password they’re allowed to use, is a violation of the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act because our software is used to launch the channel. The Electronic Frontier Foundation calls the CFAA “The Worst Law in Technology” (
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/12/worst-law-technology-strikes-again-2017-review) as it stifles innovation, allows large corporations to use their monopolistic powers to threaten and intimidate small startups like ours, and “threatens a hallmark of today’s Internet: free and open access to publicly available information.”
While we disagree that we are in violation of the law and have tried for months to work with Adobe to settle the dispute, those efforts have been unsuccessful. In the interest of continuing operations and getting our apps restored, we have agreed to disable the TV Everywhere functionality from the app which will result in all TVE-authenticated channels being removed for the time being. This was a difficult decision to make, but we simply can no longer afford the legal costs to defend ourselves against their allegations while our business suffers due to not being available for download. We are still holding out hope that Adobe takes a pro-innovation stance and comes to the table to discuss how to work together to make a great user experience for TV Everywhere.
If you do not use a cable provider to authenticate, then you can continue to use FitzyTV uninterrupted. We have also continued opening up the platform so that TV providers and developers can more easily directly integrate with us, so stay tuned for more on that. If you would like your provider to integrate directly with us, please reach out to them and have them contact us. If you are a developer and want access to our APIs, please email us at
[email protected] for an API key.
Thank you for being loyal FitzyTV users, and we look forward to continuing our mission to simplify the fragmented internet TV ecosystem despite this setback.
Sincerely,
The FitzyTV Team
The service recently became popular with cord cutters as it let you DVR programs from streaming services you paid for even if that service didn’t offer a DVR. Now though Adobe says that their use of Adobe tech is not legal and FitzyTV is agreeing to remove that functionality limiting the app.
For now, we will have to wait and see what happens with the legal battle between FitzyTV and Adobe who manages the logins for many of these services. Will Adobe be happy with this change or will they push FitzyTV for more. Cord Cutters News will post updates as we learn more.
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Do you use the FitzyTV app to DVR your streamed content? You may have noticed that the app is no longer available on the Amazon App Store or the Google Play Store as of last year. Now FitzyTV has announced that they will be removing the ability to access TV Everywhere functionality from their services due to a “legal dispute” with Adobe.