On a more speculative note, it is important to point out that the original Boxee implementation was quite different than the current one and, at the time Hulu initially blocked Boxee, there was a much stronger legal case that Hulu could have made against Boxee than it can currently. Boxee's own response to the hearing makes a similar clarification. Zucker to suggest that other browser makers are obligated to have distribution deals in order to enable browsing to Hulu (simply because they display content on the TV screen instead of the PC screen). Neither Mozilla nor Google (nor Microsoft or other browser makers) have distribution deals with Hulu. It is not a distribution platform or a video website. This makes technologies like PlayOn and Boxee very different (legally) from the "distributors" (aka: "websites") that Mr. In fact, PlayOn is actually a customized version of the Internet Explorer engine (the current version of Boxee uses the Firefox browsing engine in a similar way). It uses standard Web protocols for this communication, just as popular browsers like Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome do. It is PC software which communicates with and downloads/renders content from remote Web/content servers in order to fulfill browsing requests made by a user. As many PlayOn fans have been well aware of for quite some time, PlayOn is, fundamentally, a Web browser. Zucker's response which bears scrutiny is his statement that, "what Boxee was doing was illegally taking the content." To understand this point, it is first necessary to understand what Boxee and PlayOn are, and what they do functionally. I believe Boxee would be eager to do so as well. We at PlayOn would be more than happy to collaborate with Hulu on such an approach (and have expressed this willingness to both them and NBCU in the past). As one small example, Hulu could implement a model where more ads were inserted into commercial breaks when viewed on the TV screen, and technologies like PlayOn (and Boxee) could participate in such a program by identifying themselves to Hulu's system as a "TV Browser" (to facilitate this). However, it would seem more productive to try to work with players like PlayOn (and Boxee) in order to improve the economics of an episode on the TV screen, instead of pursuing the short-sighted tactic of attempting to block such technologies. Admittedly, balancing these competing objectives must be a difficult exercise for NBCU. It is that the economics of an “over-the-air” viewing are currently more attractive to NBCU than an "over-the-net" viewing. Zucker's seemingly disingenuous finger-pointing at Hulu serves to underscore the awkward position NBCU finds itself in when trying to encourage Internet distribution of its content through Hulu to the PC screen (which reduces the frequency of Internet piracy), while simultaneously trying to prevent the same Internet distribution to the TV screen (which increases cannibalization of broadcast viewership). Kilar was referring to did not include NBCU, given the significant influence NBCU is capable of exerting on Hulu as a material equity stakeholder. It seems highly unlikely that the "content providers" Mr. Zucker's initial inclination to point the finger at Hulu all but directly contradicts Hulu's own public statement in which their CEO, Jason Kilar, said that, "Our content providers requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product, and we are respecting their wishes." At the time Hulu's statement was issued (February, 2009), NBCU was one of only two content providers who owned a significant stake in Hulu (the other being News Corp). What we preclude are those who illegally take that content.", said Zucker.įirst of all, Mr. And, you know, all, all the, we have several distributors, actually many distributors of the Hulu content that we have legal distribution deals with so we don’t preclude distribution deals. "This was a decision made by the Hulu management to, uh, what Boxee was doing was illegally taking the content that was on Hulu without any business deal. Zucker's response (below) was interesting for a number of reasons, which we at PlayOn feel warrant additional clarification and comment. During those hearings, Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA) asked NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, "Did Hulu block the Boxee users from access to the Hulu programs"? This long discussed topic has recently gained more interest due to Congressional hearings last week looking into the Comcast acquisition of NBC Universal (NBCU). Many members of the PlayOn community have been asking about PlayOn's relationship with content providers, most notably Hulu.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |