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"Viacom and Time Warner Cable are pressing the pause button on the legal battle regarding access to programming and cable channels via the iPad.\nIn April, Time Warner Cable and Viacom each filed lawsuits over the Time Warner Cable TV app for iPad. The app, which allows Time Warner Cable customers to watch live broadcast streams from various stations, was deemed by Viacom (who owns cable networks Comedy Central and MTV, among others) to violate the channel distribution agreement by the two parties. Time Warner Cable disagreed, arguing that it was essential for it to broaden its offerings.\nThe Wall Street Journal says the two companies have \"entered into a standstill agreement\" as they enter talks to bring the channels back to the iPad app.\nMeanwhile, Viacom is suing Cablevision over its iPad app. Like Time Warner's app, Cablevision's Optimum app for the iPad allows users to stream and access on-demand content from any station on their cable package, provided they access the content from their home. Cablevision has refused to remove channels from its app, while Viacom has called licensing discussions \"limited and unproductive.\"\nCablevision has responded to the lawsuit with a statement:\n\"Cablevision's very popular Optimum App for iPad, which has been available to our customers for nearly three months, falls within our existing cable television licensing agreements with programmers \u2013 including Viacom. It is cable television service on the iPad, which functions as a television, and is delivered securely to our customers in the home on Cablevision's own proprietary network.\"\n\n\nCablevision's iPad app\n\nThe streaming issue raises some interesting questions about what actually separates a device like the iPad from a traditional cable box. After all, it's the same content sent digitally, whether received by an app or a set-top box. \nCable networks worry that apps turning iPads into TVs will undermine some of their ratings (not to mention prevent the companies from getting more money from cable providers or customers by providing iPad access to content). But that boat has already sailed \u2014 check out the EyeTV system, for example, which plugs into your cable box and broadcasts to your iPad. In an ideal world, the cable giants would be able to agree on a setup that makes watching content even easier. \nImage courtesy of Flickr, Chloester"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2011/06/23/viacom-cablevision-time-warner-cable/>