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ICraveTV II - Canadian showdown
typecast writes "It's taken nearly 10 months, but
this story says JumpTV is finally just some not-so-short hearings away from what could be an entirely legal (in Canada) version of iCraveTV. But the company says it probably won't wait for the hearings to end to begin Webcasting off-the-air TV signals live on the Net ... using its technology to reduce that iCraveTV-like "leakage" into the U.S. If JumpTV's border control technology can keep the MPAA out, could it keep French Nazi hunters away from Yahoo!'s servers?"
American Culture?
That wont take much bandwidth.
I am looking forwared to a JumpTV surviving censorship attempts, because I will use it to watch channels that the broadcasters won't let me see otherwise. This is similar to how Napster lets us (or used to) let us listen to music that the record companies refused to sell us (bootlegs and old stuff), and how those DVD utilities let us view DVD material that we otherwise would never be able to see due to the Region system. There wouldn't be any of this problem if the related industries weren't so reluctant to sell us this material in the first place: the problem isn't unauthorized viewing/listening without paying the company. Rather, it is unauthorized viewing/listening to material using these controversial sources since the industry refuses to sell it to us at all. Here is a good example of this: there is a major-label DVD I want to view. It is sold in Region 2, and they have no plans for a DVD for Region 1 that I could view. Instead of paying the company for the DVD that I can't watch, this encourages me to buy a pirated VHS version of the DVD off of eBay, which I could watch.
Cooperative adjacent countries make bilateral agreements about the overlaps: Canada and the U.S. are two such, and they have rules in place which specifically protect the advertisers, the folks who pay for the content on TV.
Uncooperative countries broadcast across borders, and the only choice the recipient has is to jam the signals: the Voice of America and Radio Moscow are two examples.
I don't think JumpTV's business model is close enough to TV's to work, but the existing business model (buy a feed, sell advertising) will work on the 'net as well as on cable and broadcast, without change.
Instead of being regionalized, as you fear, I suspect it will be a big lever to use against those who wish to use their nominal ownership as a claim in a regime where "if you broadcast it, you've given it away".
Remember, in that model, they sell the performance rights to distributors (networks) who pay for them with advertising. Selling preferentially, dumping and other shady business practices are prohibited by the anti-trust laws in the countries where the sale takes place.
In other words, by admitting the CRTC has jurisdiction, the content providers end up being constrained by an existing body of law, applied to the internet as if it were a big broadcasting tower.
davecb@spamcop.net
This is not stealing. Canadians broadcasters have agreed to allow rebroadcast as part of their licensing agreement to get the spectrum. US broadcasters have no right to allow their broadcasts to 'leak' into Canadian airspace. If anyone is stealing, it is the US broadcasters that are stealing spectrum from potential Canadian broadcasters. These are free, over-the-air broadcasts that include all local and national commercials. The broadcasters should be looking at this as a way of expanding their advertising reach to new audiences. Strange to hear them arguing for lower ratings isn't it?
I don't understand JumpTV's delay based on a $.75/month (it appears that's C$) fee to copyright holders. The ideal security solution is to charge a c$9/year subscription for the service charged to a credit card with a Canadian billing address. This would satisfy the security requirements and the copyright holders. The fee is low enough (about the same as one meal at McDonalds, or two coffees at Starbucks) that I can't see anyone balking at it, it surely beats the cost of satellite or cable. In fact, it's low enough that you would expect ISPs, especially DSL providers trying to ward-off cable ISPs, to bundle it with their service.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
If I remember correctly, the increasing popularity of Windows Media format over Real Media is mainly down to two things:
.wm file out there is an implicit advert for the joys of switching to Windows rather than Mac or whichever flavour of *nix you might want.
.wm over .rm every download, as to my eye the .wm looks better for the given file size. Its crisper but blockier, so I can see some would disagree, but then everything is going to be a matter of personal judgement to some extent.
1) Cost. Real charge a lot more for the server licenses and encoders than Microsoft do; not surprising as every
2) Quality. Given the option, I choose
Also, the general nightmare of getting Realplayer and Realjukebox to not gobble resources and stick its spyware and taskbar rubbish off my system means that I'll take every opportunity I can to get the piece of junk off my box.
None of the currently popular formats are ideal - mpeg 1 isn't the greatest quality per byte and doesn't stream well, Real has the player problem above, WM is Windows only and Quicktime is only Windows or Mac. Since Windows is such a large share of the market I can see why some would rather forego the other platforms to avoid the other problems.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
You're absolutly right. And even ignoring the ethical aspect for a moment, it only shows that corporations and money is running the show. Why should JumpTV have to put regional barriers to respect the laws of another country? I mean, really, if it was, say, Afganistan instead of the MPAA screaming bloody murder, would anyone gives a damn?
-Earthling
-Earthling
"I'm sorry, I had to; the irony was just too thick."
Speaking of which, can someone please explain to me the reasons for the popularity of that format? I mean, not that I particularly like Real Media, but at least it's running on more than one freaking platform.
-Earthling
-Earthling
"I'm sorry, I had to; the irony was just too thick."
Let's face it, on one hand, most of us love the idea of a company being able to screw the TV companies over, no matter how they manage to do it exactly. It certainly sounds good to me, taken on its own. However, the fact that the company has to put in place regional barriers means that this is a Bad Thing.
Think about it for a minute. The Internet is (or at least, was meant to be) all about inclusion of peoples, freedom to access content wherever it is located, and sharing. Instead, we're now looking at situations where, for instance, I can get a service that others cannot.
Extrapolate that a little further now. Based on region, Big Company Inc is able to charge different amounts of money for their virtually-delivered (i.e. online) service, and for no other reason than the fact that they can.
JumpTV's service, even if free, manages to have enough parallels with the DVD regioning system that it's not funny.
this is how i feel about this sort of thing... click