Real Sues Baseball Over Windows Media

westlake writes 'According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, RealNetworks has sued Major League Baseball over its use of Windows Media. The dispute began with MLB's decision to stream exhibition games in WMA format only, under its revised contract, Real claims all live MLB streams must include RealMedia as an option. The piece states: 'Windows Media Player controlled about 34 percent of the U.S. market, compared with nearly 19 percent for RealOne player and 10 percent for QuickTime player, according to January data from Nielsen/NetRatings.'"

Comments

I'm so torn

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope Real wins, Major League Baseball sticks by the terms of the contract they signed, and Microsoft has to start dealing with competition.

But on the other hand, if all three parties got wiped out by a freak comet impact, I'd be even happier!

Re:I'm so torn

[RazzleFrog]

They don't show you a copy of the contract but if it says Season and doesn't specifically say pre-season or spring training then Real has no case. The baseball "season" doesn't start until The Yankees play Tampa Bay in Tokyo on March 30th. I think even a 5 year old could tell you that.

Re:I'm so torn

[Anonymous Coward]

Hooray for realplayer....and its glorious 1920's radio sound.....

Re:I'm so torn

[Funkeriffic Toad]

I have to disagree. Often, those who dislike baseball simply do not know enough about it. I, for one, would be quite dismayed if MLB were to disappear. For example, as a resident of the Boston area, it is virtually impossible for me not to be a Red Sox fan; half the fun is knowing that if (when!) we win the World Series, New England will shut down for months in celebration. (Then Hell freezes over and pigs start flying...)

On another note, baseball is one of the more computer-friendly sports in that watching the action is almost unnecessary. I would suspect that live webcasts of the game are not nearly as popular as updated-every-30-seconds box scores are. E.g., I would never waste my time and energy trying to stream a game in Windows Media Player, let alone Real Player. Instead, when I can't watch the game I use a little Java app from Yahoo Sports that shows the complete box score, the batter and count, and situation stats at all times. With this much information, what use is a crappy-quality stream?

Of course, we all know that MLB controls the Guvmint's secret spy satellites anyway, so its no use for Real to fight them...

Re:I'm so torn

[Anonymous Coward]

I like baseball. But Major League Baseball can kiss my metal ass, what with its secret spy satellites and hidden cameras monitor my every move. Bastards.

Re:I'm so torn

[Anonymous Coward]

watching the action is almost unnecessary

My feelings exactly. I'll even take it a little further and say it is completely unnecessary to watch baseball.

Re:I'm so torn

[dTaylorSingletary]

I can't understand city-team loyalty. A city's team is not representative of the city in almost any way. The players are not, for example, native Bostonians, and in most examples the players only live in the city of Boston because they signed a contract with Boston. What is the psychology of loyalty in this case? Is it because the people owning the team (often, the owners are also not natives or dwellers of the city in which they play) have the cunning to choose these players?

Is team loyalty merely an act of convenience? Because I live in x city and x city has a team, I therefore should root for x team. Can someone explain this? Rationalize it beyond it being just the way things are?

Re:I'm so torn

[PD]

Actually, this is bad for Real. Audiences will be able to bring up two identical streams side-by-side on the computers. They will see that Windows Media looks a lot better. Oops.

Re:I'm so torn

[Maserati]

Geee, MLB in WMA or RealPlayer. There's a hole with no bottom.

And besides those and Quicktime, who has the other 37% of the streaming video market ?

Re:I'm so torn

[Anonymous Coward]

Yuo aresn't smrat enuff for teh baseball, tahts why yuo donet get it. You big dum dubm, hoam teem bas bal fanns aer SMRAT and loav a gud gaem!!!!1!

Re:I'm so torn

[GlassUser]

Probably standard MPEG

Re:I'm so torn

[CrowScape]

No no no! People who don't like baseball simply do not DRINK enough!

Re:I'm so torn

[AndroidCat]

This looks like a job for .. Schadenfreude Man!

Re:I'm so torn

[Maserati]

That's a relief. Probably porn sites.

Re:I'm so torn

[Pieroxy]

Guess what format can be read by any OS, with any Media Player? MPEG.

Sucks, but works.

Re:I'm so torn

[pbaumgar]

If you don't understand the psychology of city-sports loyalty than you really don't understand what it means to be a fan. I grew up in Chicago. I'm a Chicago Bears fan. Some of my fondest memories are watching Bears games with my Dad and brother. I live in Boston now. I love the Red Sox. I've invested a lot emotionally in supporting the team. It's not because I live here... I hate the Pats and they are Super Bowl Champs. People don't just root and support a team because they are homers. They support a team because of feeling and emotion. Players of a team embrace a city, people look for players who engage the fans. Take Curt Schilling, he very much has started to take a hold of Boston and he hasn't even pitched a game yet at Fenway. But, it's his personality.. he understand what fans want from players. Fans don't give a crap if a player is from the hometown, they just want repsonsive players to the fans. Loyalty is a feeling, it's something very unique. I guess as a Sox fan I can't explain exactly why I love the Sox.. but I do. The Sox make me feel good, I look forward to booing them, cheering them, second guessing them. But in the end, I support them because it makes me feel good... and that's being a fan. Sometimes you can't explain it. It's emotions and attitude.

Re:I'm so torn

[CPlusPlusOwnsYou]

While I dislike WMP, I do not believe that Real can tell another company which formats they MUST use/support. I dont hear Apple threatening to sue because MLB wont make .mov formats available. What If i own a porn site with wmp movies only? Will I get a letter from Real's lawyers?

Re:I'm so torn

[Anonymous Coward]

People who don't like baseball simply do not DRINK enough!

Then why hasn't it ever caught on across the Atlantic? Isn't Britain, the home of beer and whisky, one of the heaviest-drinking countries in the world?

Oh, wait, I know... it's because they're all watching cricket, the only sport that actually manages to be slower than baseball.

Re:I'm so torn

[spells]

baseball is one of the more computer-friendly sports in that watching the action is almost unnecessary

Excellent endorsement for MLB :)

Re:I'm so torn

[RazzleFrog]

Wow. Talk about ethnocentric. Your country doesn't know baseball which means that most of the world doesn't. Well I have to tell you that baseball is huge in Latin America and most of Asia. Just because it never caught on in YOUR Europe doesn't mean it isn't popular elsewhere. And they say that Americans are self centered.

Re:I'm so torn

[mantera]

why are they playing in tokyo.. why don't two US teams play in the US

Re:I'm so torn

[Anonymous Coward]

Given a choice between Microsoft and Real, I think I'd actually have to root for Microsoft. They may be anti-competitive and evil, but Windows Media 9 (both the codecs and the player) are great. And best of all, they don't come with a fucking Message Center.

Re:I'm so torn

[Typhon100]

"The contract covers 'the season,' which runs from the first pitch of preseason to the last pitch of the World Series," Chiemingo said.

Since when is "preseason" considered "season"? Someone needs to investigate the meaning of the prefix "pre".

Re:I'm so torn

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess I'm an idiot. I'm 26 and couldn't have told you that.

Re:I'm so torn

[GregWebb]

I've not tried streaming video but with audio off the BBC I found the exact reverse, FWIW.

Re:I'm so torn

[hesiod]

> > watching the action is almost unnecessary
> I'll even take it a little further and say it is completely unnecessary to watch baseball.

Taken to the logical extreme, the game itself is unnecessary -- just assume either the Braves or the Yankees won. Then there's only one game that needs to be played.

Re:I'm so torn

[ivan256]

The answer starts with a dollar sign and is followed by lots of numbers.

Re:I'm so torn

[ragecgi]

Here here.

Re:I'm so torn

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of interest, how many teams in the World Series are non-American? And if any, do the American teams travel to them for Away games?

Re:I'm so torn

[royalblue_tom]

With people demanding the best in sports entertainment, the teams have to be of a similar level - or the game becomes boring. This is true of all the national US sports. Since the large cities have a larger fan base, they will receive a dispropotionate income. This leads to a larger budget for player acquisition. As a result, we get salary caps, player transfers, a draft, and every other mechanism that can be tried to even up the teams, and provide an entertaining game.

As we demand high levels of performance, the players are eventually going to be professionals. Should they be locked into playing for a single team? There really isn't any way you can justify locking professional players to their home team - they would not have a choice of employers. So the player's home town cannot really be a factor for professional sports.

It comes down to this. As a fan, the more you invest in the game, the more you get out of it, and the easiest way to do that is to identify with, and root for a particular team. Most of the games you watch are likely to be the local team. Go and watch a team enough, and you will feel an afinity for that team (and probably buy the hats, shirts etc). The only issue you then have is, what do you do if you move to a different city?

Re:I'm so torn

[SHEENmaster]

I think even a 5 year old could tell you that.

Fetch me a child of five!

Re:I'm so torn

[jamshid42]

Actually, I live in the U.S. and have no clue when baseball season starts or ends. But then again, I care about baseball as much as I care about cricket -> Not at all.

And to keep this on-topic: I'm not really surprised about MLB's decision on this. Trying to get the free version of Real's player is a terrible pain. Quicktime isn't much better. You can find the free version of QT easily enough (unlike how deep Real buried theirs), but the servers hosting the free version of QT are constantly jacked up and you have to sit there and click retry about a thousand times to get it downloaded.

As far as the contract goes, MLB should just broadcast the games in both formats (unless the contract has an exclusive format clause). That should keep Real's lawyers at bay and make for happier customers at the same time.

Re:I'm so torn

[RazzleFrog]

I didn't mean that everybody knew but that a 5 yr old who knows of baseball can tell you the difference between the regular season and the preseason.

Re:I'm so torn

[Anonymous Coward]

You're calling him ethnocentric when you say "I think even a 5 year old could tell you that"? A five year old where?

Re:I'm so torn

[RazzleFrog]

My biggest complaint with quicktime is that it bugs you every time you open it to upgrade to Pro and like real it throws itself into my systray.

I know use alternatives to both Real and QT (available here) but I haven't tested them that thoroughly to recommend them to everybody. They use classic media player with added codecs which loads up in a quarter of the time and doesn't put crap everywhere.

Re:I'm so torn

[RazzleFrog]

I actually specified in another post that I meant a 5 yr who is a baseball fan. Obviously finding a 5 yr old in Cambodia who knows the baseball schedule would be pretty difficult. Notice I didn't say any 5 yr old or all 5 yr olds. I am also not a 5 yr old so claiming that they would know would not be ethnocentric of me. I would have to be a member of that group to be considered ethnocentric.

Re:I'm so torn

[PD]

I honestly haven't done a controlled test of the two, but I discovered that NASA TV is carred through the KSC website and also through the United Space Alliance website on both Real and Windows media. I pulled up the stream, and Windows media looked a lot better.

This isn't really a controlled test because I don't know if they might be screwing with one video stream and not the other. But there you go.

Re:I'm so torn

[Anonymous Coward]

There are Canadian teams. There really should be Cuban and Japanese teams in the series; I don't know of anywhere else that gives a fuck about baseball.

One of these days....

[Tangwei]

before I die, I'd love to see a company actually try to innovate, instead of sueing.

Re:One of these days....

[rmcii]

I'd love to see them die instead of saying their innovating...

Re:One of these days....

[pigscanfly.ca]

I tried that once
Now I highered a lawyer (just jokeing)
Small companies tend to innovate because they cant affored the legal mussle required for the sueing phase of business :-)

Re:One of these days....

[Anonymous Coward]

How long do you plan to live?

Re:One of these days....

[UberLord]

Kodak have been pretty inovative over the years. But they're also sueing Sony over patent infringement.

Would you die loving or hating this?

Re:One of these days....

[Anonymous Coward]

Plenty of companies do that. They just don't get stories on Slashdot.

Re:One of these days....

[catch23]

I don't think innovation here is the point though. RealOne may have great innovations, but windows media is built into almost every computer that runs the microsoft windows. RealOne will simply wiped out because nobody will go through the trouble of downloading it if windows media is already available.

Just think on the Linux side. Mplayer is a great player, but you have to download & install it. Suppose KDE included some great media player bundled along and KDE had 90% of the Linux desktop market. Who in their right mind would go through the trouble of downloading and installing Mplayer even though Mplayer might have better innovation??

Re:One of these days....

[realdpk]

Right. One day, I'd love to see a company actually follow through with a contract. Oh wait, most do!

This is a basic contract dispute. It's not Real suing out of the blue just because Windows Media Player exists.

Re:One of these days....

[kfg]

So do I, but this suit has nothing at all to do with technology. It's a simple contract dispute over streaming rights.

And a pretty stupid one, I might add.

And it all really comes down to "content providers" such as MLB wishing to control the content from cradle to grave. The cost of this suit is to be legitimately charged against their unwillingness to stream in an open standard format.

It's all about DRM and who gets to tell your eyeballs what they can and cannot look at, what they must look at, and when.

KFG

Re:One of these days....

[unableToComeUpWithAN]

You said, "before I die, I'd love to see a company actually try to innovate, instead of sueing."

I hope you don't mean it seriously.

Lots of companies have made innovations. Don't just think technology (IBM, Xerox, Bell Labs, and yes Microsoft). Also think about medical companies, even car companies.

True, many companies also resist innovations, even their own (insert the above list of companies here too).

The point is, innovation is not something that only happens outside of companies, much, if not most, happens within company settings.

Of course, much true innovation happens in the itty-bitty company level. Look at all the companies Cisco and others have bought over the years.

Companies do try to innovate and many succeed in it.

Re:One of these days....

[Anonymous Coward]

Usually MPlayer is usually bundled with distros(just striped of the features that make it worth using). Your example isn't the best, as most Linux users aren't that lazy that they won't download something better.(Hell, they are using Linux over Windows in the first place)

Re:One of these days....

[NanoGator]

"before I die, I'd love to see a company actually try to innovate, instead of sueing. "

Didja read the article? Heh. Believe it or not, this isn't your typical "hey you forgot to include us!" case, it's a "you signed something saying you'd do something and now you're not, stick to your contract."

If they were suing without this contractual obligation over their heads, I'd agree with you.

Re:One of these days....

[Draknor]

It's not Real suing out of the blue just because Windows Media Player exists.

<mode=SCO>
But that's not a reason not to sue...
</mode>

Re:One of these days....

[carpe_noctem]

Funny, I tried to sue you for egregious spelling errors, but my lawsuit got kicked out of court, too.

It's a rough world, isn't it?

Re:One of these days....

[Deadplant]

Debian users would 'cause all we have to do is type "apt-get install mplayer-686" ...bring on the distro flame war!

Re:One of these days....

[Cornelius the Great]

But litigation tends to pay off more nowadays (look at SCO, duh) than actual innovation. I hate to say this, but it sounds as if lawyers are cheaper than R&D costs for larger businesses.

Let's face it, Real (tm) movies suck, and their streamed movies suck even more, especially over a DSL connection. I couldn't ever bring myself to even attempt to watch a game streamed with Real media- if any action (such as a ball being hit and camera quickly pans to wherever the ball goes) were to take place, the entire display turns into a mess of pixels, and I find it difficult to actually follow.

I hate to say it, but MS's video looks better at the bitrates that I can enjoy (about 512k).

To top it all off, Realplayer isn't free (except that the free version is littered with adware/spyware). MS mediaplayer is (provided you're running Windows, of course), and requires no payment or ads, outside of the video.

Realplayer's suit in this case may have merit (if MLB didn't abide by the contract), but I wouldn't install Realplayer if they were broadcasting free porn, let alone baseball.

Re:One of these days....

[mjolner]

Worse than that - not only does one need to go through the trouble of downloading RealONE, what one gets with it is pop-ups and processes that run for no other reason than to remind you to buy their 'free' software and other 'news'. Like a previous post, I too am torn. Monopolies are bad, but Real is no good either.

Re:One of these days....

[DFossmeister]

I use apt-get on redhat too, so there is no distro-war here. Of course I had to install it, but that was painless. Nothing to see people, go about your business.

Re:One of these days....

[Anonymous Coward]

When was thankyou ever a word?

Re:One of these days....

[berkut1337]

and before I die, I'd love to see people spell correctly... a long life ahead for me!

Re:One of these days....

[gangz]

These days more is heard of companies sueing each other, than the companies announcing something innovative. When was the last time that we have heard a really interesting and truly worth technology announcement from any of these big-wig companies ? Please people, why do you forget, if you create something really worth its salt, you will get the customers automatically.

Re:One of these days....

[Anonymous Coward]

Real is an open standard format?

What kind of weed are you smoking, it must be fucking green as hell.

Re:One of these days....

[Anonymous Coward]

"1: Woo-hoo! its all correct"

And that should be, "1: Woo-hoo! IT'S all correct"

Re:One of these days....

[webtre]

<mode=SCO>
We just hate the license.
</mode>

Re:One of these days....

[1u3hr]

RealOne will simply wiped out because nobody will go through the trouble of downloading it if windows media is already available.

So why is it that people will happily download and install any number of spyware and virus ridden apps? (Of course, one might argue that Real was in that category too...)

I remember when Real 3 or 4 was bundled with Navigator, a tiny utility that let me stream sudio on my 486 under Win 3.1. And I'd be happy if I could still do that except they changed the fucking codecs so they're incompatible.

Re:One of these days....

[kfg]

I am smoking a nice cut cavendish, thank you, as is my wont. Very nicely cured, with a hint of vanilla, making me a more pleasant companion in the noses of some than when I choose the latakia ladden British blends that I'm also fond of.

Nor has MLB refused to use Real. In fact, they have agreed to do so. Had they refused there would be no suit.

Perhaps your own pipe needs a bit of looking after?

KFG

Re:One of these days....

[SlightOverdose]

Sorry. I own US patent 4,666,423,433,213,413,551,666,342 ("Method of increasing revenue by innovating").

I have forwarded your message to my legal department. Prepare to be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

n.b. I also own US patent 4,666,423,433,213,413,551,666,343 ("Method of increasing revenue by sueing"), but it is completely identical to US patent 4,666,423,433,213,413,551,666,340, owned by the Sco group.

Re:One of these days....

[SlightOverdose]

KDE does include a pretty good media player- Noatun. It also has a great mp3 player- Juk.

I still prefer mplayer and xmms respectively, because I think they are better. even though I have to go to the effort of downloading them.

IMHO, WMP9 is actually quite nice, and is good enough for most users. In windows I use the win32 version of mplayer simple because it's very lean and mean, and all I need is for it to play movies.

Re:One of these days....

[elfkicker]

The telepnone/baby bell thing always comes up as the big cometition argument. But phone service always sucked and nobody even noticed when it got better. Wait, did it?

But, imagine in Time warner and Comcast and whoever else could actually pay their way on a per subscriber basis actually had equal access to each others lines (on our tax supprted lines/poles). You couldn't help but have unbelievably creative ways to get more out of your broadband. As soon as people realize that REAL growth opportunities come from things they would never even dare to do, people win. Large entities can't even consider those risks.

Prodigy or Compuserv or MSN a decade ahead could never have been "the internet". Competition explodes when the medium to deliver is available and afforadable. Innovation lives in striving to win.

Please vote appropriately.

Re:One of these days....

[halliburton]

Yeah, but Kodak is dying. They were somewhat innovative last century, but they have failed to evolve to meet the challenges of this century. They're going to have to use the new 'legal' business model to stay alive, and that will only last so long..

Re:One of these days....

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I highered a lawyer

So how tall is the little bugger now?

Re:One of these days....

[Reapy]

Right on. I dread having to use .rm for anything because as soon as I open the player I'm bombarded by pop ups and it opens up some real_blahblah process that'll periodically annoy me if I forget to go in and kill it. Real needs to die.

Re:One of these days....

[hesiod]

> Kodak is dying.

Has it been confirmed by Netcraft, or are you just speculating, hmmmm?

Re:One of these days....

[hesiod]

> Didja read the article?
> If they were suing without this contractual obligation over their heads, I'd agree with you.

Did YOU read the article? The contract is for the baseball "season." The games in question are not season games. Hell, even if you stretch the definitions of the contract to include preseason games (which it does not cover), this isn't even a preseason game. This is about an exhibition game, totally independent of the season.
Therefore, Real should have no case. We complain about people sueing others without recognizing some details that are obvious to us, but not to others. Well, to baseball fans, it is quite obvious that Exhibition games have no part in a "season."

Re:One of these days....

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a nice steaming cup of shut-the-hell-up-you-fucking-unfunny-bastard?

Looks like

[iminplaya]

a regular contract dispute to me. "Where's the beef?"

spyware

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't use RealPlayer at all. If for some reason a website offers only RealPlayer videos I just do without. not a big deal for me. much more annoying, as you say, to remove the tentacles of Real after you've installed their "free" player.

-sweatyb

Re:spyware

[icebike]

Well some people like baseball more than they hate Real. Sue Us.

I can't bet anything to play unless go to my windows
computer, but I work on Linux and I like to listen to a ball game now and then.

I would not have paid $14 to MLB for a season pass to listen to the games if i knew I couldn't use my primary computer - linux.

Supposidly there are MS media player alternatives for linux buy so far nothing work for MLB streams.

Re:spyware

[Anonymous Coward]

I would not have paid $14 to MLB for a season pass to listen to the games if i knew I couldn't use my primary computer - linux.

Sounds like a problem with your choice of operating systems. If you'd use Windows or MacOS you could be listening to those games on your primary system. People don't see me complaining I can't play Civilization III on my Sun Solaris system do they?

Re:spyware

[Anonymous Coward]

you can get codecs that allow you to play real media files in windows media player classic... http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/mirror.htm scroll down till you come to Real Alternatives Unfortunately it doesn't work 100% of the time, and i'm not sure how well it can handle a streaming video, and it still relies on wmp, but its better than realplayer....

Re:spyware

[Rick Zeman]

I don't use RealPlayer at all. If for some reason a website offers only RealPlayer videos I just do without. not a big deal for me. much more annoying, as you say, to remove the tentacles of Real after you've installed their "free" player.

That's ironic, because that's what I do if something is WMA-only. And if I something's offered in both streams, I'll choose Real every time.
And if I want to uninstall RealPlayer, I'd just drag the app to the trash and empty it. It's gone. Wait, you can't do that on Windows???

Re:spyware

[Mahesa]

"...and it still relies on wmp"

Doesn't. This is a common misconception of Windows Media Player Classic, due to the name and its look. Both were intentional at conception, but the software (which is standalone, single executable and nothing else) itself doesn't *require* microsoft's windows media player installed. It does use and require the directshow/activemovie subsystem which is standard on all windows boxen since Win95.

As for the alternatives at that site, I seriously doubt their legality... but, quite frankly, in the interests of a healthy, (spyware|virus)-free windows box, I don't care.

Oh, yes... MPC is open source.

http://sf.net/projects/guliverkli/

my head is going to explode

[randomized]

THEY ARE JUST AS BAD AS EACH OTHER!!!

You can't remove neither from your computer once it's installed. Except for fdisk / format.

Seriously though, for Baseball it's probably better to distribute content in windows media format. At least MS player is not as braindead as Real187.

Re:my head is going to explode

[Tremor (APi)]

Agreed - neither is a good option. Maybe MPEG would be a better way to go? Of course, if it's in a signed contract that they offer Real as an option, they should abide by the contract they signed. That doesn't make it a good option for the user, though.

Re:my head is going to explode

[NeoThermic]

I view it as Real being worse. At least you can choose not to use Windows Media Player, over, say WinAmp due to the new settings avalible in XP, but Real just kills your system by installing pure crap and spyware, as well as taking over all media extensions, even if you try tell it not to.

NeoThermic

Re:my head is going to explode

[Unoti]

Real is worse than Microsoft. I've hated Real from the first time I struggled to remove their mal-ware garbage from a machine. I've had many many re-occurances of that to reinforce the bad taste in my mouth. I'm happy to see Real go down the tubes. Suing is just part of the noise they make as they die.

Re:my head is going to explode

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool! Can you video it and then put it online in RealMedia format.

Re:my head is going to explode

[Anonymous Coward]

Well they have to use some sort of streaming video server since this is live content. The most common choices for that are Real, Microsoft, and Apple. I don't think there's any option available that doesn't involve a proprietary client.

Re:my head is going to explode

[Tremor (APi)]

With all the open source projects out there, you'd think this wouldn't be the case any more. Hopefully an open-source streaming standard will be available soon, eh?

Re:my head is going to explode

[Mahesa]

Windows Media Player Classic - Open source, doesn't triple registry. XViD - Open source, MPEG4 compliant video codec, decoders available for all platforms (AFAIK) and DivX compatible. My pet hate at the moment with Window Media's container format (ASF, WM) is that they take frickin' ages to seek, ages compared with eons old AVI. That, plus the fact that you can't view them on any other platform without stressing yourself out. Windows media files I download and *want* to watch are converted to HuffYV avi files first. I really don't like 'em. Real media I won't touch at all.

Can this be turned into a video game?

[Bendebecker]

Just imagine it: Major Leaguers with bats chasing down lawyers. GTA only with not so innocent civilians...

Re:Can this be turned into a video game?

[JPelorat]

Hmm. That's a tough decision. I think I'd have to go with lawyers with bats chasing Major Leaguers around.

Gonna burn in hell either way.

Hey, i'm with realplayer.

[Gannoc]

They're just being proactive instead of waiting for Microsoft to "innovate" them off the map.

What's wrong?

[powerpuffgirls]

I can't see what's wrong with the lawsuit. RealNetworks has a contract with MLB.

Please note that Real is not asking MLB to only broadcast in Real, as the article stated, "MLB is free to use Microsoft's Windows Media format if it wants, but under the Feb. 8 agreement, it also must use RealNetworks' RealMedia format to provide live coverage of the entire baseball season, including spring training."

Re:What's wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it is Real, it must be bad! Same type of thing with Microsoft.

Re:What's wrong?

[YrWrstNtmr]

Depends on whose definition of season is used. What does the contract actually say? Specific dates, or just "the entire season"?

Evidently, Real believes that includes spring training. MLB seems to have a different idea.

Personally, I think the season begins at opening day, and ends on the last game of the regular season. The post-season start just after that.
But then I don't watch/follow baseball, and I'd never bother to try to watch a game on TV, much less on the PC. Having it in Real format would make me enjoy it even less.

Shame on Real for not being more specific.

Re:What's wrong?

[Kilka]

Your absolutely right. Contracts have terms that must be met and damages that must be awarded if the contract is broken. I'm guessing they never had the later, in which case they would just go for the neck.

Same thing as if you are contracted to supply cement for a bridge and the entire bridge project gets cancelled, you still get awarded damages. (Within reason).

-Kilka

Re:What's wrong?

[way2trivial]

my definition of season-- if they sell tickets

Re:What's wrong?

[Weirsbaski]

Please note that Real is not asking MLB to only broadcast in Real, as the article stated, "MLB is free to use Microsoft's Windows Media format if it wants, but under the Feb. 8 agreement, it also must use RealNetworks' RealMedia format to provide live coverage of the entire baseball season, including spring training."

What's the problem? MLB could follow Real's footsteps in guiding the user to the preferred format. To find a web link to a Real stream, you have to click through a procession of fourteen different links, including three white-on-white-text links and one link cleverly covered by a flash animation.

Re:What's wrong?

[naktekh]

Entire season means exhibition, regular season, all-star and playoffs/World Series.

Re:What's wrong?

[ameoba]

OTOH, if MLB doesn't have Real video now, for spring training, it's a pretty clear sign that they don't plan on running it during the regular season. We're talking the kind of operation that is going to have everything nailed into place during the off season.

Of course, that doesn't give Real a leg to stand on in court if the contract was only for the regular season, but it's definately a sign that they need to start preparing a case...

Re:What's wrong?

[hesiod]

> Entire season means exhibition, regular season, all-star and playoffs/World Series.

No, actually, it does not. Ever heard of preseason games? Know what the prefix "pre" means? That's right, the phrase means "Games before the season starts." So how can "the season" be defined including before the season starts? Otherwise, "season" would not have been specified, they would have said "All MLB performances."

Re:What's wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

the L.A. Times take on the story was that MLB wouldn't shed a tear if Real Audio simply went away---a stinging put-down for RealNetworks which loses millions on MLB streams, but still needs to show it can deliver an audience.

What's the other 37%?

[Trillian_1138]

I admit I haven't RTFA, but 34% (WMP) + 19% (Real) + 10% (QT) leaves 37% to add to 100. I'm assuming this is only streaming video, so what takes up that extra market share?

-Trillian

Re:What's the other 37%?

[powerpuffgirls]

It only says "U.S. market", but didn't specify if it's the PC market, or streaming market. So maybe 37% of the others don't have any streaming client installed?

Re:What's the other 37%?

[sreid]

you forgot animated gifs and javascript animations and why not .. Flash

Re:What's the other 37%?

[Anonymous Coward]

and porn

Re:What's the other 37%?

[Unoti]

The other 37% is people clicking through pop-ups, getting notifications that another version of Real is available, and trying to figure out how to un-install Real player.

Re:What's the other 37%?

[ciroknight]

Mpeg. It's an open standard, so it can't be counted towards real, wmp, or qt..

Re:What's the other 37%?

[notsoclever]

Nice theory, except that MPEG-4 (the only truly streaming MPEG) *is* Quicktime.

Re:What's the other 37%?

[Toxygen]

It says Neilsen/Net ratings, so I'd hazard a guess (without RTFA of course) that the rest is made up by television viewers. I know it might sound like a small number for television viewership, but think of how many hardcore fans there are who can't afford or just don't have access to satellite or digital cable, assuming they're even all being broadcast at all. There's what, 164 games in a season, and 30-something teams? That's a LOT of games to saturate the sports networks.

Re:What's the other 37%?

[Stevyn]

Um, ogg of course! Don't you know everyone uses ogg? Every wednesday night we get together and make fun of wma users for their lossy drm'ed spyware.

Re:What's the other 37%?

[ciroknight]

no, you're mistaken.. MPEG-4 is an open encoding scheme: winamp can decode it, windows media can decode it, hell.. it can be decoded on linux.... that's the reason why it's called a Standard...

Re:What's the other 37%?

[Deadplant]

Every night before i go to bed I pray for ogg to finish their video codec, and for people to write a complete live streaming solution with cross-platform/free(beer)/free(speech) players/encoder/servers.

If that dream comes true I will throw a party and everyone is invited! (byob, i'm not made of money!)

Re:What's the other 37%?

[Anonymous Coward]

But if MS controls 90% of the PC market, that means 90% have some version of Windows Media Player installed - crap, even Windows 3.11 included Media Player.

Re:What's the other 37%?

[Unregistered]

guess mplayer is more popular rhan i realized.
Or they don't include proprietary formats. Does quicktime even have a proprietary format, though? I though it was straight mpeg?

Re:What's the other 37%?

[Unregistered]

I think he means why do they incluse quicktime at all since it doesn't have a proprietary standard.

Re:What's the other 37%?

[jmcneill]

Erm, I don't know what world you live in, but in my world, it's very common to see streaming MPEG2. Look at the little logo on the front of your Bell ExpressVu satellite receiver sometime.

Re:What's the other 37%?

[Glenstorm]

Even if ogg is finished, will anybody use it? I don't see corporations using it. It ticks me off to no end that all of NHL is locked down in WMA. What are the motivators for picking a streaming protocol? Price? Quality? Userbase?

Apple offers a "solution with cross-platform(beer)/free(speech) players/encoders/servers" in the Darwin Streaming Server package. As far as I can see big media hasn't jumped on this opportunity for low(no) cost/platform independent streaming of their content. What about OGG is going to compell them to use it?

Re:What's the other 37%?

[westlake]

Every night before i go to bed I pray for ogg to finish their video codec, and for people to write a complete live streaming solution with cross-platform/free(beer)/free(speech) players/encoder/servers

Ever take a look at Winamp's Internet TV? It's a wonderful ideal. But hobbiests can't afford the content or bandwidth to make it a reality and mainstream providers won't look at a solution that doesn't include DRM.

Re:What's the other 37%?

[Deadplant]

you may be right.
still.. i have some faint hope.

btw, darwin isn't free.
It is only free for home users and educational institutions. If you want to use it for commercial purposes you have to "contact their licencing department"... they don't post prices so it is probably expensive.

Real = RIAA

[pholower]

Real is just doing what other failing industries are doing. Biting the hand that feeds them. Real hasn't been losing money because of MLB didn't want to renew the contract as it was previously, it has been losing money because it sucks. Large groups of people (no matter how stupid) will eventually pick the better format. I am not saying that Windows Media is the better format, but when you only have two options, Real or Windows Media, you be the Judge.

Re:Real = RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Real is just doing what other failing industries are doing.

And that's asking people that they do business with to uphold their end of the contract? From what I read the recently signed contract between Real and MLB says that MLB is to also offer up Real streams on their website.

Re:Real = RIAA

[Lord_Dweomer]

"I am not saying that Windows Media is the better format, but when you only have two options, Real or Windows Media, you be the Judge."

So....Quicktime then?

Re:Real = RIAA

[VegetariMan]

Yeah, let's have only one format instead. Why would anyone ever need anything other than Microsoft software?

Re:Real = RIAA

[Moraelin]

IMHO you're missing the point.

RealOne sucks hard. It sucks harder than an industrial vaccuum cleaner. It sucks harder than an expensive hooker.

And I don't mean just from a technical point of view. While it isn't wrong per se to ask that a contract be upheld, what RealNetwors is doing to the users of their own damn product _is_ wrong.

Now I'm all for having some healthy competition and all, but there are times when I draw the line. If the way to fight Microsoft's monopoly is to install Real's crap on my computer... well, then I for one welcome our new Microsoft overlords.

Re:Real = RIAA

[Trauma_Hound1]

Instead of actually making some point, you just say they are wrong. If you had any clue, you would point out specifically what is wrong, instead of making vague arguments.

Re:Real = RIAA

[Moraelin]

Well, I guess, sometimes relying on the people to connect the obvious dots, seems to be an unreasonable expectation. Oh well. Let me write a short summary of the last couple of messages in the thread up to that point for you:

- Parent's parent, basically: Real's stuff is crap, and that's why Real is losing. When the choice is etween MS MediaPlayer and RealOne, you be the judge.

- Parent, basically: yeah, let's all give in to Microsoft's monopoly

- Me, basically: RealOne is so crap, that I don't give a damn whether MS is a monopoly or not. If fighting MS means installing RealOne on my machine, damn, I don't want to fight MS after all.

Maybe now you can follow it. If not, hey, don't be affraid to ask. I can draw pretty colourful pictures for you ;)

Or did you mean exactly what is wrong with RealOne? Well, how about the endless barrage of popups? How about that they annoyed the living crap out of me even when RealOne was _not_ in use and I had unassigned all file extensions from it? Or how about the fact that it seemed to want to load its crap into memory even when using the obvious options to tell it _not_ to? Sure, the icon disappeared from the tray, but somehow it still spammed me with popups.

No, sorry, it doesn't look like a good business plan to me. It just served to convince me that I don't want to see anything that comes encoded in Real Media format. I don't care if it's a recorded message from God himself, if it means RealOne, I don't want it. I suspect I'm not the only one.

Or how about the fact that for a long while, it was a pain in the butt to even find the free download on the RealNetwork site? It's not just my vague suspicion that some people gave up after the second or third link that pointed them to the paid version instead. We actually had an article right here on Slashdot and right on the front page about stations switching to Windows Media just for that reason: that people were complaining that there seems to be no free player to see the content with.

So again, just in case this is still too vague for you to follow: yes, RealOne is total crap, and RealNetworks is losing ground only because they're idiots. (With sincere apologies to the many fine idiots, whom I've insulted by comparing them to RealNetworks.)

The choice between MS MediaPlayer and RealOne, isn't as simple as a "monopoly scumbags at Microsoft vs the good guys at RealNetworks" choice. It basically boils down to choosing between the MS monopoly scumbags which actually make a good product, and the RealNetworks scumbags who make a crap product. There is no "good" choice there. There is, however, a slightly less bad choice. And it's Microsoft.

er math error

[stimpy1306]

39 + 19 +10 =68

So which media player tech controls the other 32 % ? With those numbers the media player market might just escape MS's slimy grasp.

And we care what -real- the bloated buggy crappy player does because?

I hope MLB uses those bats for something useful

Later

Andrew

Re:er math error

[Goalie_Ca]

We all know that baseball fans just love the superior xvid format as well as mplayer. Besides, compiling gentoo gives them something interresting to watch during the game.

Re:er math error

[pholower]

Hey Smart Ass, there are more players than Windows Media, Real, and Quicktime. The last 32% is probably controlled by several different players. Just because Windows operates over 90% of the OS market, and Apple with 3% doesn't mean they are the only two. Linux, Unix, Solaris, hell even BeOS and OS/2 probably have their place as well.

Re:er math error

[Anonymous Coward]

The other 32% are: buffering... buffering...

Re:er math error

[mroch]

It actually says 34 + 19 + 10 = 63%, but who's counting? Microsoft and Real combined still barely have majority.

Re:er math error

[Anonymous Coward]

The last 32% is probably controlled by several different players.

Like which ones?

Re:er math error

[prockcore]

39 + 19 +10 =68

So which media player tech controls the other 32 % ? With those numbers the media player market might just escape MS's slimy grasp.

Actually, it's more likely that those numbers reflect browser penetration.

Meaning they'll never add up to 100% because I could have both quicktime and wmp installed.

So 39% of web browsers have wmp installed, 19% have real installed, and 10% have quicktime installed. You can't normalize it for the people who don't have any media player installed because of the overlap.

At least that makes the most sense, since how else would you measure media player market share?

Is preseason real baseball??

[MagicDude]

The disagreement is about MLB not using real to broadcast the preseason games, which Real believes is part of their contract. This kind of debate is something jocks can provide us the most insight on, on whether preseason is real baseball or not, on a technical and a meaningful level (Does the preseason really matter of affect how the regular season will go?)

Re:Is preseason real baseball??

[RazzleFrog]

Preseason is meaningless on anything but the player level. Standings and team stats mean nothing. It is all about whether so and so is healthy, whether he stayed in shape over the off-season, finding out who is going to start, seeing what talent there is in the minors, etc.

Re:Is preseason real baseball??

[iminplaya]

No, real baseball doesn't start until the post season :-) During the regular season, it's called "hanging out in a giant beer garden and enjoying the weather"

This is ridiculous.

[Tar-Palantir]

While I haven't read the contract, and am not a lawyer, based on the information in the article this is a stupid lawsuit by Real. They are alleging that the phrase "baseball season" in their contract with MLB includes the exhibition serieses and the World Series.

Every baseball fan knows the term "preseason" and "postseason". Apparently Real Networks does not, and thinks it's grounds for a lawsuit.

Anybody got deeper info?

Re:This is ridiculous.

[smart.id]

No, they most definitely know the difference. They're just exploting the semantics of the legal document to make money and get attention and market share.

Re:This is ridiculous.

[LostCluster]

"Baseball season" is not a commonly used term at all. "Regular season" is the term you use when you want to describe period that excludes "preseason" and "postseason" games.

Yes, the "pre-" and "post-" prefixes usually imply that it it's a time period outside of the usual unmodified use of the word... but in terms of sports seasons this may be questionable.

The word "entire" or "regular" would have made this contract nice and clear. Since it isn't clear, that's why they go to court...

Re:This is ridiculous.

[quantaman]

Every baseball fan knows the term "preseason" and "postseason". Apparently Real Networks does not, and thinks it's grounds for a lawsuit.


You seem to be confusing "the season" with "the regular season", during the regular season you often do mention just "the season" for efficiency but I've never felt that there's any confusion in the fact that in baseball, as with hockey and football, "the season" in divided into 3 portions, the preseason, the regular season, and the postseason, the term pre/post season is short for pre/post regular season. The season refers to exactly what it sounds like, the entire period of time when the players are playing, I assume that the first contract had similar language and there didn't seem be any problem then, if the contract does infact cover "the season" than Real is entirely in its rights to sue as MBL did breach its contract.

Re:This is ridiculous.

[Tar-Palantir]

Though I see your point, I cannot imagine a lawyer being insane enough to use a vague phrase like that to include the somewhat ill-defined non-regular-season schedule. Seems to me that if they meant "everything", they would have it spelled out, otherwise it would actually refer to the regular season.

It would be valuable if the article actually quoted the relevant portion of the contract.

Re:This is ridiculous.

[Anonymous Coward]

The word "entire" or "regular" would have made this contract nice and clear. Since it isn't clear, that's why they go to court...

Not that I agree with the lawsuit or anything, but if I were Real I'd be firing some lawyers right now, for letting that slip through. Aren't lawyers supposed to catch things like this, in exchange for their exorbitant fees?

Re:This is ridiculous.

[Anonymous Coward]

While I haven't read the contract, and am not a lawyer

Why didn't you the standard /. acronym?

While I haven't read the contract, and ANAL.

Re:This is ridiculous.

[general_re]

"Baseball season" is not a commonly used term at all.

It's the opposite of "wabbit season".

Re:This is ridiculous.

[Arker]

I agree that it's a bit ambiguous and that's what left room open for the suit.

The more interesting question, to me, is one no one seems to have brought up yet though. Why does MLB want to not make these games available in both formats? They're making the regular season games available in both formats either way, so obviously there is no technical problem - the overhead is already payed. Could this be something they're doing in order to get a sweetheart deal of some kind?

Re:This is ridiculous.

[Anonymous Coward]

nice and clear?? aparently you don't know may lawyers....

Re:This is ridiculous.

[Anonymous Coward]

Duck season!

How were neilson ratings gathered?

[Hungus]

Since real has licensed QT codecs I wonder how they figured out who has what penetration? They must be looking at what people are using to view/listen to the media as opposed to actual installed user base.

Re:How were neilson ratings gathered?

[Eraser_]

Neilson has some very dubious spyware that you can install which will track your web habits. No where, to my knowledge, on their website nor inside the application do they acknowledge what this software is actually doing.

I was once invited to be a "neilson computer" so I could show them how much porn the average 21 year old looks at, and trusting the name I installed the software. Honestly it was exceptionally easy to install, but did require a reboot. Then it just ran, small memory foot print but it only lasted about 120 seconds before I realized I couldn't see who what when where or how this software was collecting data. Uninstall was painless, almost no residue. (Log file or so)

I assume this is where they got their stats.

Free Market?

[Melvin Daniels]

Apparently Real thinks that it's okay to undermine the free market.

Unless Microsoft has made some sort of exclusive deal in an effort block out everyone else, I can't see how this lawsuit will have merit.

Hell, looks like even Baseball can see that even Windows Media format is 10 times better than the hunk of shit Real makes.

Gee, maybe they need to realize...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that they are not making a profit because their player sucks? Who wants to support a bloated pile of garbage that pops ads at you even MORE after you pay for it?

Listen to that disclaimer

[Haikiba]

I take it MLB didn't get "Expressed Written Consent" for that.

What a crock.

[grub]

Apple doesn't sue PC shops for not selling Macs and they have a smaller piece of the pie than Real in the respective markets. Sheesh, if you're a teen reading this and thinking about your future, don't get a CS degree unless you're a smart cookie. Consider law.

Re:What a crock.

[kfg]

If a PC shop took delivery of a certain number of Apple products and then failed to pay for them, as per contract, yes, I think Apple would sue. That's really all that's at stake here. A simple contractual disagreement.

In this case though, it's more like the PC shop signed a contract with Apple to display Apple products for the summer, and Apple is claiming that summer starts as soon as the snow melts, not on June 21.

KFG

Real Supports Other Platforms

[jpgrimes]

I think slashdot users should take note due to platform selection. I have paid for the mlb broadcasts the last two years since I could listen to the Redsox in Baltimore at home and work. Now, with windows media being the only stream being offered, I will not be able to listen to the broadcasts as windows media player doesn't support either my linux machines (or solaris the other OS I use). So MLB take note, I probably won't renew this year if media player is all you offer.

Re:Real Supports Other Platforms

[mhesseltine]

Now, with windows media being the only stream being offered, I will not be able to listen to the broadcasts as windows media player doesn't support either my linux machines (or solaris the other OS I use). So MLB take note, I probably won't renew this year if media player is all you offer.

Quick FYI: Mplayer's supported formats seem to include Windows Media formats. I've sucessfully opened ASF files and WMV files using Mplayer on Gentoo. I'm not sure about Solaris (I don't run it) but Mplayer's page on Solaris seems to indicate that it should work.

Re:Real Supports Other Platforms

[_generica]

yes, this is correct
i've used mplayer, and xine based solutions such as totem to listen to online radio streaming in windows media formats

Re:Real Supports Other Platforms

[dubiousmike]

I'm sure they are ok with that. I refused to buy any of their games because ALL they offered was Real. I will not install Real on any of my machines. While WMP sucks nearly as much, it still isn't as bad as Real's current and past shady tactics.

And doesn't Linux have players that support WMV?

Re:Real Supports Other Platforms

[Keebler71]

.....or you could try Mplayer

Re:Real Supports Other Platforms

[pudge]

None of this makes any sense. I have a current subscription to this service (so I can listen to the Red Sox in Seattle). I use RealOne to listen to the preseason broadcasts. The documentation provided by MLB.com when I signed up said Real is required. The fact is that MLB told me I needed Real, I am using Real, and any assertion that -- right now -- Real is not available is patently false.

So color me confused.

Re:Real Supports Other Platforms

[Varitek]

FYI, I've been listening to the pre-season games in MS Media Player format using Firefox and mplayerplug-in on Debian unstable.

Re:Real Supports Other Platforms

[Perky_Goth]

yeah, but MPlayer is in a legal limbo and thus not terribly easy to find in a package for most distros.
that's not exactly support either...

Re:Real Supports Other Platforms

[kevincoleman]

And I would not have paid for MLB broadcasts had they stuck with Real; I only re-subscribed when I saw they were using WMP. Now don't get me wrong, I'd much rather they use QuickTime, but anything is better than Real. I pretty much quit watching games about halfway through last season when I finally got completely sick of RealOne's appalingly bad performance.

Re:Real Supports Other Platforms

[Trauma_Hound1]

Oh really now? Real has never been taken to court by the government, like oh say Microsuck. Why don't you get your facts straight moron.

Re:Real Supports Other Platforms

[dubiousmike]

Real installed spyware on machines for many years. Microsoft went to court and was forced to change their ways. Real just kept doing crappy things until most of their intellegent customers fled for slightly less crappy products like Windows Media Player.

You just show your ignorance when you say "Microsuck".

I'll let you get back to trading recipies on your Goth web site now.

Re:Real Supports Other Platforms

[gymell]

I have exactly the same feeling ... I'm a Braves fan living in the midwest and have paid for the last 3 seasons to listen to games online. Since my desktop machine at work is Linux, I guess it could soon be goodbye Braves (on Real), hello Cubs (on the radio)!

bah

[nomadic]

I don't understand libertarians. All you guys complain about is how the judicial system interferes with capitalism blah blah blah, and that they should stay out of everything except contract enforcement. Real brings a breach of contract action and you STILL complain! This has nothing to do with the quality of Real's software (yes it sucks, and it always has), it has to do with a CONTRACT.

Re:bah

[squarooticus]

What makes you think the people complaining are libertarians?

Re:bah

[Trogre]

All you guys complain about is how the judicial system interferes with capitalism

I think you'll find that it's the other way around.

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

When one is in love with any idiology, he sees the scheming of its opposite everywhere. Thus, I propose nomadic has become trapped in the mindset of SOVIET RUSSIA!

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people here are communists, not libertarians.

(Just kidding, you commie bastards.)

Re:bah

[nomadic]

Because this is slashdot.

Re:bah

[Brandybuck]

Yes, Slashdot. Where everyone is a socialist claiming to be a libertarian but voting for Kerry.

Re:bah

[squarooticus]

The reason I ask is that there are actual libertarians here (myself included) who see nothing wrong with a contract violation case going to court. I think you are stuck in the classic trap of seeing all slashdot readers as socialist slashbots: I assure you, there are quite distinct subgroups here.

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand libertarians.

You are not alone.

Allow me to clarify:
Democrats want: more, bigger government that interferes with your personal, private life and to control your every thought and word.

Republicans want: more, bigger government that interferes with your personal, private life and to control your every action.

Communists and Socialists want: all of the above, but more.

Libertarians want: you and the government to mind your own damn business while they mind their own. Effectively, a negation of all of the above political leanings.

One more thing.... Libertarianism != Anarchy.

Re:bah

[nomadic]

Most people on slashdot tend to be as far from socialist as you can get. Not me, I'm pretty socialist, but I'm definitely in a minority here.

Misleading title

[NanoGator]

"westlake writes 'According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, RealNetworks has sued Major League Baseball over its use of Windows Media. "

Wrong. They're suing MLB for NOT using Real. This news would be mildly more interesting if MS told MLB not to use Real. But the article doesn't say that happened, so put your pitchfork down. I can't believe that's the headline over there.

Actually, Real's probably in the right over this assuming the contract is as clearly stated as it is mentioned in the article.

Re:Misleading title

[zazas_mmmm]

assuming the contract is as clearly stated as it is mentioned in the article.

You may have misread the article. I do not think it means what you think it means.

The dispute is over whether spring traing is a part of the baseball season. Any baseball fan (espeically one as rabid as I) will tell you that it clearly is not. This is why the current period is referred to as PRE-season. It's also why Double A ball players are facing off against Jason Schmidt and Garth Brooks is batting for the Royals. The pre-season is the period of training and exhibition games before the season begins.

It seems pretty clear that Real is being litigious. The heavyhandedness is familiar. It's quite similar to the way they've been upselling me Real One with spyware the last two years. It's not going to endear them to MLB just like the popups aren't going to make me want to buy their product (let alone use the free version).

Re:that's weird

[stephanruby]

"now they can sue me for not using their software?"

They can if you sign a contract with them saying you will.

"will microsoft sue me for not using windows?"

Same thing, if you sign an actual contract with Microsoft, then you're bound by that contract. We're not even talking about an Eula here, we're talking about a real bona fide contract.

Re:just use this

[icebike]

Windows only. (puke)

"Real" Baseball Comments

[Eberlin]

Sponsored by the MLB because the WMA format is like Realplayer on Steroids.

Hey, our software is about as intrusive as the proposed drug-testing you guys want to implement -- I say we're a perfect match!

With names like A-Rod and "The Big Unit" we're just trying to innovate the Web more than the porn industry!

RealPlayer -- don't be a player hater!

RealNetworks should instead sue because the MLB promotes the use of the password-hacking software "crackerjack"

What's more American than baseball and a shady software company that wants to take control of your machine? Um...wait, we meant the folks who do the WMA format, not us.

text of lawsuit

[dboyles]

PLAINTIFF, Real Networks, Inc. hereby does... ::Buffering...::Buffering...::

Re:text of lawsuit

[ruprechtjones]

I don't think it's really fair to bring this up in today's high-spee ::Buffering...::Buffering...:: -ially concerning a lawsuit in the courts ::Buffering...::Buffering...:: if you look back at, say 1997 and the great ::Buffering...::Buffering...::-eal Networks is still tr ::Buffering...::Buffering...:: ah forget it, I'll grab the mpeg from BitTorrent.

Re:text of lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

PLAINTIFF, Real Networks, Inc. alleges that DEFENDANT Major League Baseball ("MLB") willfully and ..

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?

(moral: don't download court documents from Kazzaa).

Re:text of lawsuit

[cornjones]

That is the funniest thing I have read all day. Thank you.

Re:text of lawsuit

[ShavenYak]

Shouldn't it be:

Would you like to buy the upgraded RealPlayerPlusUltraSuper? (user clicks NO)

Are you sure? (user clicks YES)

Are you REALLY sure? (user clicks YES)

Then how about the RealPlayerPlusUltraSuperMega Titanium Pack? (user clicks NO)

Are you sure? (user clicks YES)

Would you like to see other offers from our partners? (user clicks NO)

Would you like a year's subscription to TIME magazine? (user begins getting frustrated)

See, they're not one of our partners, so we thought you might like to see their offer! (user bangs head on desk, then clicks NO)

Okay, I guess I'll play the stream, cheapskate!

PLAINTIFF, Real Networks, Inc. hereby does... ::Buffering...::Buffering...::

Even dumber than it looks...

[mtnharo]

Amazingly, this isn't even as heavy of a dispute as it sounds, according to the article, the entire lawsuit depends on when the "season" starts. MLB has been putting up audio streams of exhibition games in WMA format only, while Real is claiming they have to put up RM streams too. The contract states that they must use RM during the season. Apparently it's time for the courts to break out their dictionaries and grammar books. Does the "season" include the "pre-season," which technically is before, and not part of, the official "season"? Same with playoffs and the World Series?

Even better, Real is desperate to hold on to this contract, since apparently the old contract (which granted exclusivity to Real) was costing them more than it brought in. Maybe they'll finally create a profitable business model? Hey there's a good one, Real posts a profit while streaming a Red Sox World Series victory...

Re:Even dumber than it looks...

[mindstrm]

IT does all depend how it was defined.

It would seem reasonable that by "Season" they mean the regular-season games.. not exhibition games and whatnot. That is commonly accepted.. though probably not all that heavily thought about.

As a business, though, there is MONEY in pre-season and post-season games... there is an audience, there is gambling, there is everything you get wiht normal season games.. so season could also be taken to mean one entire yearly cycle of the sport.

Sounds like this really is one for the lawyers though.

Re:Even dumber than it looks...

[js3]

sounds like a dumb move to me. You don't go about sueing customers when you have disputes with them, you meet and resolve it. Real can kiss their contract goodbye when it expires

Re:that's weird

[powerpuffgirls]

The whole thing is about marketing. If you have agreed to mention Blah Inc. during your press conference, but you failed to do so, you'll get sued. And it doesn't matter if you want to also mention Baa Inc., but you must mention Blah Inc.

MLB failed to give RealNetworks such marketing presence, thus gets sued.

Re:that's weird

[cmacmanus]

I know, it's a crazy world we live in. If I had the ability to tell a baseball fan 40 - 50 years ago they wouldn't believe it. What's next indeed..

Seems pretty obvious to me

[tintub]

"The contract covers 'the season,' which runs from the first pitch of preseason to the last pitch of the World Series," Chiemingo said.

I know nothing about baseball, but it seems to me that preseason, by definition, is not covered by 'the season'.

Re:Seems pretty obvious to me

[Anonymous Coward]

"I know nothing about baseball, but"

Stop right there.

Real's New Slogan

[Anonymous Coward]

Real Player: Free as in syphilis.

Re:Real's New Slogan

[Anonymous Coward]

Funniest. Post. Ever.

Re:Real's New Slogan

[spectre_240sx]

Agreed, as much as I dislike Microsoft software and their business practices, I still think Real sucks and I wish they would just meet there end now instead of prolonging the agony (ours, not theirs).

Real media, Real proprietary

[thirty2bit]

As much as I dislike the Micrsoft monopoly (Microsopoly? Whatever...), I dislike everything Real-associated.

Besides the Spyware, besides having to go through heck to even find the free Realplayer on their site.... the galling part is anything you put into a Real format is stuck there. Just try and find some apps that convert their sound or video formats to some other format.... it's a challenge.

Pot... kettle... black!

Re:Real media, Real proprietary

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't find the free player on their site,

You're an idiot. Seriously.

I build systems which include it, and I'm at their site every other week looking for new versions, and it's hardly a problem.

Maybe take some English lessons, learn how to read, etc.. You're a fucking clueless bastage.

Re:Real media, Real proprietary

[Anonymous Coward]

• I'm at their site every other week looking for new versions, and it's hardly a problem.

If you went to the DMV every other week, you'd never stand in the wrong line. So is the DMV your model of government efficiency?

The real deal is..

[cmacmanus]

"Real" is trying to remain "relevant". :P

I have prepared a response.

[Raven42rac]

I have prepared a response, I believe that (buffering, buffering, buffering) the case has no (buffering, buffering, buffering) ahh the hell with it.

RealNetworks Sues more customers.

[barfomar]

The Wall Street Journal said in an similar article today:

"RealNetworks has become increasingly willing to use litigation to defend its position in online media, after a sustained attack from Microsoft in the market"

National Public Radio's Cartalk website dropped RealNetwork recently for related tactics.

If I were a potential customer, I might think twice about signing up with them in the future.

Could be time to do a short sale, although these things can take a while to come to fruition.

RNWK's CEO may be emulating Daryl.

Litigation can be a viable business model, but when you sleep with the Devil, you'll probably get screwed.

Market Control?

[sPaKr]

How do you control a market? these are not commodities. A user can have all of these, or none, or any combination there of installed. Its not like an OS where the computer is running one OS at a time (side stepping the virutalizaton issue). So install base isnt a zero sum. Now you can distrubte the same content in multiple methods, so again this isnt zero sum. So HOW can you have a market share. Its not like the rating what people are watching as one tv can only be tuned to one thing at a given time (again side stepping PIP). Shouldnt it be the percentage of people that have the compatiable player installed. So for all internet connected client machines, X% have a compatiable WMA player, Y% have Real, and Z% have Quicktime. X, Y and Z have no corelation ( assuming players dont attack each other). So you cant 'control' the market but rather its a progess meter on how well you have been able to penetrate the market. It is completly possible for windows to have 100%, while Real has 100%, and Quicktime again has 100%, that would mean every client machine has all three players installed. If that is the case who has 'controled' the market?

Re:Market Control?

[lordcorusa]

When they refer to market share for a streaming meadia format, I am assuming they are making some kind of estimate of the per cent of all streaming media traffic that is of format X.

For example, if 100 media streams passed through a monitor node during a given time period, and 34 of them were WMF, 19 were RM, you could say that MS had 34% market share and Real had 19% market share. This figure gives a rough estimate of the popularity of each media format.

Re:Market Control?

[Lord_Dweomer]

" It is completly possible for windows to have 100%, while Real has 100%, and Quicktime again has 100%, that would mean every client machine has all three players installed. If that is the case who has 'controled' the market?"

The player which is more frequently used above the others. And if you think they don't know the numbers behind this you're dead wrong. What do you think all those little "call home" connections are for?

READ THE WHOLE DAMNED THING

[Anonymous Coward]

"...Real claims all live MLB streams must include RealMedia as an option."

Re:READ THE WHOLE DAMNED THING

[Anonymous Coward]

That's pretty much exactly the entire point of the grandparent.

So, do you work for Real, or do you just hate Microsoft?

Me Thinks

[Jexx Dragon]

that all streaming video should be .avi or a good open-source video format. I hate all these damn Windows Media and RealPlayer formats. Every time I go to a website they have two options for video (and audio) clips and streams:
1) Windows Media
2) Real Player

Damn Windows.

Re:that's weird

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Of course not. If you won't RTFA, RTFB (blurb).

This is probably no different from one providing binaries but not source for a GPL application. You agreed to provide a format in your contract, you either do so, or argue that the contract doesn't cover that instance. And if you're smart you do so even if it isn't explicitly in the contract, so there's no chance of a lawsuit and you look good in the other people's eyes.

Microsoft can sue you, and probably successfully, for not using Windows if Microsoft and you had contracted for you to sell dual-boot machines, and you start selling all-Linux machines.

Litigation As A Business Model

[Naked Chef]

Let's see, the list of companies not to patronize continues to grow...SCO, Kodak, Real...

Real CEO is a baseball team owner, too

[eggboard]

As I pointed out in a blog entry today, Real's chairman and CEO (and founder) is also a minority owner of The Seattle Mariners. Thus, by Real suing MLB, Glaser is -- in part -- suing himself. Why are no reporters covering this aspect?

Re:Real CEO is a baseball team owner, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Because in and of itself it's a neat factoid but irrelevant. Now if he's directly involved in decisions or hasn't declared to both boards that he's in conflict then it's more than a neat factoid.

Re:Real CEO is a baseball team owner, too

[evilviper]

Real's chairman and CEO (and founder) is also a minority owner of The Seattle Mariners. Thus, by Real suing MLB, Glaser is -- in part -- suing himself. Why are no reporters covering this aspect?

Because it isn't even interesting as a footnote...

I'm sure you can think of plenty of employees (even higher-level managers) who've sued the company they work for. They aren't really suing themselves, they're just suing their bosses, really.

Re:Real CEO is a baseball team owner, too

[eggboard]

He's not an employee. He's an owner, thus he's part of the ownership structure that makes of MLB.

Re:Real CEO is a baseball team owner, too

[evilviper]

He's not an employee. He's an owner

He's an owner of a TEAM, not the owner of the organization that is being sued. He only has a tiny minority vote. Essentially, he's a lower-lever manager in a larger organization.

Obligatory Simpsons Reference...

[Will2k_is_here]

No, they had "Implied Oral Consent" :)

This is why...

[Anonymous Coward]

I surf at 0. I hope you (moderator) burn in hell in metamod.

Re:wow, what an original idea...

[Duncan Howard]

Here ya go: https://player.helixcommunity.org/ It is still in development, but you can grab the source and make it as decent as you want.

I guess racketeering is legal again...

[CodePyro]

Is it me or does it just seem like that coporatation philosophies have changed from "customer always come first and make products and services customers like" to "if they dont like our product we'll force them to use it and if they dont use it we'll sue our competition"....wtf is going on with these companies...ie. SCO...Real...Kodak...give it a break your not helping your business you just inviting bad publicity and alienating your company in the process....Make you product better and stop trying to force and sue your way out of a problem...

Not the bigger issue

[Trogre]

The RealMedia breach-of-contract issue aside, I'm much more worried that places like this are considering switching exclusively to Microsoft-controlled formats.

What ever happened to the more free formats like DivX?

Re:Not the bigger issue

[BCW2]

A revamped DivX would be nice but M$ would just buy it. What really surprises me is the number of people who seem to care about baseball.

I gave it up after the 91 strike and a pox on all their houses.

Typical...

[Bl33d4merican]

Rich big business Republicans sticking with rich Republican-funding M$? Why am I not surprised?

Talk about mincing words

[sweatyboatman]

You might have a point if the contract said "baseball regular season". But apparently it doesn't.

when a team loses in the playoffs the players and staff talk about getting back there "next season" and "doing better next season". Everyone understands they're talking about doing better in the "post-season" part of the season.

All I'm saying is "pre-season" and "post-season" can just as easily be considered part of the general baseball season.

Of course, this all should have been hammered out in the original agreement. Fire the contract lawyers! And hire some new ones to handle the litigatation!

ps. for the record, I am not a baseball fan

Re:Talk about mincing words

[Anonymous Coward]

It's obvious you are not a baseball fan because your comment is stupid bullshit.

Offtopic but ...

[PReDiToR]

Parent is (Score:1, Offtopic), but I'm in 100% agreement with it.

Over here in the UK the BBC has a radio station called "radio 1" which is the flagship of national radio in Britain. They have a website directly off the bbc site (bbc.co.uk - bbc.co.uk/radio1) and they have streaming for it. On a Tuesday night they do a rock show, with Mary Anne Hobgoblin, and that is worth waiting up for. I have my awesome 5.1 surround system here, with great bass and minted high tones, but I cannot listen to it because they stream in RealAudio.

I would compare RealPlayer to a combination of New.Net mixed with yahoo messenger, with a little Gator/Claria thrown in for good measure.
Removing New.Net is next to impossible, Yahoo IM uses more firewall ports than any other 10 applications on my system and Gator/Claria is Spyware.

I'll stick to going out for a drive at 11:55 every Tuesday night and listen to it in the car, thankyouverymuchindeed.

Re:Offtopic but ...

[AKnightCowboy]

On a Tuesday night they do a rock show, with Mary Anne Hobgoblin, and that is worth waiting up for. I have my awesome 5.1 surround system here, with great bass and minted high tones, but I cannot listen to it because they stream in RealAudio.

The thing I don't quite understand is if these stations are just streaming audio (and usually just stereo audio at lower than CD quality), why don't they just stream it as mp3 or whatever Shoutcast uses? It works great on every platform I've tried it on and doesn't need some proprietary spyware-bloated application to listen. They could still offer a 56kbps for modem users and a 128kbps stream for everyone else. With video it becomes more complicated of course, but with broadband you might as well just use DivX or even mpeg2 to stream your stuff instead of proprietary codecs again.

Re:Offtopic but ...

[1u3hr]

I'll stick to going out for a drive at 11:55 every Tuesday night and listen to it in the car, thankyouverymuchindeed.

Why can't you listen to it on your radio at home?

If it's reception, try connection ot to an external antenna -- a TV one works for FM, a simple loop for AM.

Re:Offtopic but ...

[jpmorgan]

On a Tuesday night they do a rock show, with Mary Anne Hobgoblin, and that is worth waiting up for.

Oye. That's Mary Anne Hobbs.

Re:Offtopic but ...

[md04]

Ah.. But if you remember Mark 'n' Lard affectionatly reffered to her as Mary Anne Hobgoblin, and for some of us it has stuck :)

Re:Offtopic but ...

[PReDiToR]

Don't tell anyone, but we don't actually have a decent FM receiver in the house.
We had NTL cable TV until recently, and one of the channels on that was Radio 1, so we never really needed anything else. The only other FM box in the house is a tinny little tranny with a handle on it.

Re:Offtopic but ...

[Bart]

Yes, this has annoyed me for a while. Why does our national broadcaster, supported by public money, force us to install proprietary and intrusive software on our PCs to listen to their shows? WFMU should be the example.

Re:Offtopic but ...

[PReDiToR]

md04 knows the score.

Mark & Lard were where it was at a few years back, and it did stick.
If you ever get fed up of listening to the same old same old stuff, grab a copy of their album - The worst album in the world... Ever! - by the Shirehorses. You *may* laugh your pants off, or you will wonder what kind of lunatic I am to find it funny.

Re:Offtopic but ...

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe because they want the audience (and the potential donors) that only the proprietary solutions can deliver.

Re:Offtopic but ...

[hesiod]

> tinny little tranny with a handle on it.

Is that a character from The Wizard of Oz porn? The Tin Tranny?

OT, but...

[Trogre]

What just happened to my squadron of uber-kittens? They've gone!

Has /. had an upgrade?

Re:OT, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a downgrade, you insensitive clod! Signed, A squadron of Uber-Kittens

Rumors..

[Anonymous Coward]

Rumor has it Pete Rose sold a majority or his Real Networks stock and bought some MS stock just prior to the MLB announcement of the switch.

Re:wow, what an original idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

decent FREE player, as I'm not going to pay!

I'll accept ad sponsored but absolutely no spy ware or other junk!

MPEG-4 != QuickTime

[Branka96]

The file format for MPEG-4 is based on QuickTime's file format.
The audio format and video format used in MPEG-4 are not Apple technologies. Heck, Microsoft unlike Apple is one of the patent holders for the video format.
Try to play a MPEG-4 file using one of the more advanced profiles in QuickTime. You can't. Apple only supports MPEG-4 Simple Profile.

Nice to see...

[Zakabog]

...that Real is using the SCO business model, now SCO can sue them for patent violations, MLB can fight off Real with it's legal team, and Real can sit in the corner claiming MLB has done some bad stuff but if they show what it was, it can lead to more bad stuff.

I was going t o coment on this....

[Anonymous Coward]

....when I submitted it two days ago. But Since you rejected my submission and accepted this one, I'll let it slide.

Being Sued for Not Using Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

You could be sued for copyright infringement for not registering as a Windows user, since it is (in their mind) impossible to operate a PC without Windows.

Indeed, the Linux threat is nothing but a figment of someone else's imagination...

Offtopic, but WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is Slashdot running an ad across the top of the front page for MS talking about how the "TCO" is lower for Windows Server? What kind of hypocritical BS is that?

Congratulations. You've finally sold your souls to the devil.

Up yours, Real. Get a product and a life...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

I have no sympathy for Real just because they are suing the Evil Microsoft. Real is a sad excuse for a company with a shitty product that needs to just go away. And, MLB can broadcast their games in whatever format they choose.

Well...

[SeaDour]

If everyone followed Real's business strategy, Coke would be sueing many restaurants for not being offered alongside Pepsi.

Re:Well...

[higuy48]

Coke doesn't have an exclusive contract that requires that Coke be served at restaurant X. It's as simple as that. I've seen a few other threads that went by your logic. The bottom line is that if the contract mentions the baseball "season" but not the "preseason," Real will lose.

Re:Well...

[fishnuts]

But coke already does the dirty "we'll give you big discounts on coca-cola products if you promise not to carry pepsi products" thing. No idea if Real does this with encoder/stream licensing.

Re:that's weird

[mcspock]

Yep. It's an awesome customer retention policy too.

This is sickening

[Anonymous Coward]

Business by suing.
WHERE IS THE GOVERNMENT?

Yes - it is sooooo good to have ultra-capitalism....

Cartalk fiasco times 10

[Linuxathome]

As mentioned by other posters, here's the previous slashdot article that talked about cartalk dropping Real because it was extremely devious about making available their "free" player (i.e. it required way too much work to surf through all the clutter just to find it):

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/31/210202 &mode=thread

Re:that's weird

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent is not a troll and should not be modded as such. The poster is correct in that the lawsuit is apparently the result of a contract between Real and MLB, and MLB is failing to uphold their end of the contract. This differs from the incorrect analogy made by the parent's parent, since the parent is explaining how this is within the bounds of contract law.

Re:that's weird

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the flaming article. It's a contract dispute, nothing more, nothing less. Real is saying that Major League Baseball signed a contract stating that they would webcast matches in Real format, and that this is not the case.

Moderated "Interesting" indeed. Furrrrrrfu.

"...Are you crying? Are you crying?

[DeathoP]

There's no crying. There's no crying in baseball!..." -Tom Hanks, "A League of Their Own"

That's right, it's a documentary.

[Anonymous Coward]

MLB.com Gameday audio still says Real is used

[frdmfghtr]

When I bought my season audio subscription, the website stated that Real Audio was required to get the streams...much to my surprise, the streams came over in Windows Media.

I was a mmight annoyed, and will be writing soon to MLB asking why their website is so out of date or just plain wrong.

Re:that's weird

[DFossmeister]

Next thing you know, they'll be suing Click and Clack from CarTalk. They recently dumped Real in favor of Windows Media because of the difficulty in getting the real "Free" Real player, and then all of the pop-ups it had. WMP was just easier and less painful to their customers and their mailbox.

Sometimes MS does get it right, at least a little bit.

Latest RealOne Player has *gasp* better manners!

[g_adams27]

While older versions of Real's media players (RealPlayer 8, older RealOne players, RealJukebox) were notorious for nagging you with content you didn't want, tracking your usage information, and making it hard to disable the above "features", the latest incarnation of RealOne Player is actually...

<are you sitting down?>

...much politer and less slimy than previous versions!

Well, OK, maybe not right out of the box. But at least you don't have to resort to modifying registry entries, deleting executable helper apps, or deciphering ambiguously-worded menu items to make it behave.

Even better, a senior RealNetworks engineer has taken the time to provide a step-by-step guide detailing how to turn of all the annoying RealOne features!

Media players for Solaris

[Nonillion]

Well guys I run Solaris and have been using Real Player 8 for most of my mp3 and rm files. I do not know if Quicktime let alone Windows media player are even avaliable for my platform. I have never had a problem with Real Player, except finding the one for your platform of choice can be a little daunting. I just don't want to be forced to run other OSes just to watch streaming media.

Parent not a troll

[Anonymous Coward]

He's one of the only ones here with a basic legal understanding.

Who controls the other 37% of the market?

[dsplat]

Are there any other big players or is it all niche stuff after them? Any time I see an other category this large, I have to wonder why. It says to me that there is still a good sized portion of the market in play.

Not to nitpick but ...

[xpl_the_myst]

If there was a great media player bundled with KDE, I'd take it. Windows Media Player on Windows doesnt exactly match the definition of "great". Of course RealOne isnt great either, which makes the whole point of this post meaningless.

Blasted out into nothingness by nihilistic filter ....

Lawsuit is Invalid

[Stoggie]

The lawsuit should be ruled invalid. MLB bought a service. They don't have to use it if they don't want to. It's like If I don't play my old nintendo anymore even though it's there. They still have the option to use it if they want to though because they bought the option for the year.

Real needs to stop complaining and be happy they got the money they got.
Ps: Stop the lawsuits, we look like crap in other countries.

Re:Lawsuit is Invalid

[Spy Hunter]

They don't have to use it if they don't want to.

Says who? Did you read the contract? I thought not. It would be perfectly legal for the contract to require them to use the product, and that appears to be what happened here. The story says the lawsuit revolves not around whether or not MLB is obligated to use Real, but whether spring training is a part of the "baseball season" as defined in the contract. There is apparently no question that the contract does obligate them to use Real to broadcast the season.

Re:Lawsuit is Invalid

[evilviper]

MLB bought a service.

And you know this, how?

From what I've read, they had a specially negotiated contract with Real that said they had to continue providing all their content in Real format, throughout the season. No doubt they negotiated that deal in order to get RealNetworks' products and license at a lower price.

If you've got a source for this information that flies in the face of everyone else's, please fill us in.

Re:Lawsuit is Invalid

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut the fuck up. You didn't read the contract, you aren't a lawyer, and you wouldn't have a clue about any of this if it crawled up your ass and exploded.

Nintendo didn't make you sign a contract governing your usage of your equipment. Your analogy is baseless and irrelvant, and you've only proven yourself to be a complete dumbass.

The moderators who modded you up are also dumbasses, and have proven the moderation system is useless.

Re:Lawsuit is Invalid

[zakkie]

Ps: Stop the lawsuits, we look like crap in other countries.

Lawsuits are the least of the reasons you look like crap in other countries.

Vacuum Clause?

[Eric Savage]

Is there some clause that says MLB can terminate it if Real's software/format/spyware sucks? If there is I'd say MLB will win this one easily.

I don't know whose side I'm on!

[tuxedobob]

I don't like Real, I don't like WMA/Microsoft, and I don't like baseball! AAAUUUGGGHHHH!!!

Does anyone even compare...

[Anonymous Coward]

The quality of the products in question? When did that stop being an issue?

Why use either one?

[MobyDisk]

2 Questions:

1) For audio streaming, why doesn't everyone just use MP3? What is the benefit of using other formats? I doubt the bandwidth savings is worth the hassle.

2) For video and audio streaming, why doesn't everyone just use .MP4? That's MPEG-4 + AAC audio, it's an ISO standard, etc etc. Same question as above.

Re:Why use either one?

[fishnuts]

because it's all about MONEY. i totally agree with you, and these questions shouldn't even need to be asked.

Unfortunately, everyone wants to convince the world that their proprietary codec or streaming protocol is TEH BEST, but it's not based on the merits of the protocol, only on how much fame/fortune and licensing revenues it can bring to the company pushing it.

Why all the fuss?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya know, I don't understand why any of this even has to come to a contract. I'll admit I didn't RTFA. Perhaps I'm naive (and I probably am), but can I not download (perhaps purchase) the server/streaming software from MS/Real/Apple, install it, and broadcast whatever the hell I want, without paying royalties to any of those companies? I must admit, I'm primarily a Mac user, so if a site is shortsighted enough to only provide their content in MS or Real formats, I just do without. I know MS has a player for Mac, but whatever. If I was the MLB comissioner, I'd want my games available to as many people as possible, therefore I'd stream in all three formats. I'm not sure where their priorities are at.

Media Player = evil corporate monopolistic empire
Real = Bad popups, bad software, bad website, bad people
QT = not available for unix (OS X doesn't count)

I'm not sure why Apple doesn't make QT player available as a freeBSD port and have a version for linux folk. It's a tragedy that Real is the only format available to unix users, even tho it sucks. Real was good back when it was RealAudio. it went to shite after that.

I'll stick to quicktime player for now.

Re:Why all the fuss?

[sjames]

You left an option out:

Mono 16Kbps MP3, available for most everyone.

Uhm...

[aztektum]

Or large groups of people won't waste their time downloading anything else when there's already a supported player on their computer?

Re:Uhm...

[Moraelin]

That is bull. When people encounter a site which says "ok, you need to install this plugin", most people tend to actually install it. They're in fact _too_ eager to install any plugin. That's how 90% of them get those dialers, spyware and God knows what else on their machines.

You may also notice how there's no shortage of people downloading DivX. (Seein' as there's no shortage of ripped movies on P2P, for example.) Not many start saying "bah, my computer already came with Microsoft's .avi codec, I'm not wasting my time downloading DivX."

You may also notice that there's no shortage of people downloading the latest and greatest Macromedia Flash player. There are whole sites available _only_ in Flash, and a thriving Flash ads industry. Much as I'd like to see both of those die a painful death, they're not going to. Why? Because surprisingly enough people do download the plugin.

Now if they had to _buy_ a product to view those files, they might think twice. But installing RealOne? I don't think anyone will start crying over a 10 minute download. (And don't start telling me about the poor people of Elbonia with their 9600 Baud modems. Anyone on that slow a modem doesn't watch streaming video of baseball players _training_.)

Why would someone then refuse to use RealOne? Well, how about the fact that RealOne is a spammy annoying piece of crap? Or that for a long while you had to dig deep to find the camouflaged link to even be able to download the "free" (annoyware) player? Being directed to a plugin site, and every link seems to want money for it, I can see how that would make people think twice.

quality

[Anonymous Coward]

While everyone is sitting here dumping on the quality of the Real player, has anyone actually bothered watching the MLB.TV broadcasts and comparing the two? I have, and the quality of the Windows Media format is horrible compared to the Real format.

WMP (and also running it in mplayer and vlc) drops tons of frames on most of my computers (the only one that doesn't is my Athlon XP 2500+). But viewing full screen is like putting on the glasses of someone with really bad eyesight when you don't need glasses.

Real on the other hand at least doesn't drop frames and full screen is bearable if you sit 5 feet away from your screen. (Even on a 4 year old 400mhz G3 PowerBook).

I do wish that they'd just go with some free mpeg4 based codec or at least any mpeg4 based codec so you could have the option of viewing it in any player on most any platform.

yes, but can it do DRMed WMF?

[lordcorusa]

Yes, mplayer supports WMF without DRM, but does it support WMF with DRM? I have never accessed a MLB stream, so I don't know if they use DRM, or if mplayer can or cannot play them. Anyone else here know whether mplayer can access DRMed WMF files?

Re:yes, but can it do DRMed WMF?

[Moofie]

I'd like the same post please, only with more acronyms.

: )

Re:yes, but can it do DRMed WMF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Metafiles with digital rights management? Whatever next!?

In Soviet Russia, the digital rights manage YOU!

The other 37%

[Anonymous Coward]

who has the other 37% of the streaming video market ?

I'd guess standard MPEG video. Not even MPEG-2, just plain old MPEG-1, like on a VideoCD.

If you check out pr0n sites, standard MPEG-1 is a very common format for pr0n video download. Uh, not that I would know... I heard it... somewhere... um, gotta go now.

Oh the irony

[schnitzi]

How funny. RealNetworks can't even use the pictures, descriptions, and accounts of the game, even with the express written consent of Major League Baseball.

Big Money!

[mumblestheclown]

Yes, I hear there's big money in streaming pre-season baseball games over the internet. the ad-sales alone are probably worth dozens of dollars! dozens!

Numbers

[Ironsides]

Considering 34%+19%+10%=63%, who controls the other 37%? And mind you that unacounted for percentage is larger than the Windows Media Player share.

More fucking whining from Real

[c0d3h4x0r]

They can't win in the marketplace by using their spyware tactics or actually creating a quality product, so now they're trying to remove the ability for businesses to choose any technology other than RealMedia. The obvious desperation here is sickly comic.

I think we should load SCO, Real, and George W on board a European mars probe and launch it, with specific instructions to crash-land on Mars and never be heard from again... after all, Bush wants to go to Mars; SCO could finally find fossil evidence to support their claim that their propriety UNIX code is the basis for all life; and Real could start streaming video to outer space, instead of to us here on Earth.

Another proud Microsoft user.

[Anonymous Coward]

What logic! It goes like this:

"A Microsoft competitor does bad things, therefore Microsoft is not so bad as everyone thinks."

And he gets modded up. Arrgh.

Re:Another proud Microsoft user.

[Anonymous Coward]

"A Microsoft competitor does bad things, therefore Microsoft is not so bad as everyone thinks."

If the bad things the competitor does are significantly worse than MS's actions then yes, the logic holds true.

Contractrual conflicts?

[Felinoid]

... seeks an undetermined amount of damages and an order requiring Major League Baseball to honor its Feb. 8 agreement with RealNetworks. No trial date has been set.

In short Real Media just wants them to folow the contract.
A stright forward breach of contract lawsute.
Or maybe it isn't.

MLB is free to use Microsoft's Windows Media format if it wants, he said, but under the Feb. 8 agreement, it also must use RealNetworks' RealMedia format to provide live coverage of the entire baseball season, including spring training, he said.

Real Media says they are free to do so but maybe they aren't. What about the terms of the agreement from Microsofts side? Anybody?
Historicly Microsoft seeks a (legally questionable) exclusive agreement. In other words "brodcast by Microsoft media exclusivly or not at all".

While Real Media dosen't reqire any such exclusive contract if Microsoft dose that leaves MLB in a bind.

Thies contractral obligations are an absolute mess. People would do well to stay away from them entirely and instead of letting Real Networks bind you into a contract that says you must always use Real or Microsoft bind you into a contract forbidding other formats consider using open standards.

They may not be as pritty or high quality but...
What happends when Microsoft Windows dosn't hold 90% marketshare anymore?
Do you just dump contract and latch on the latest os?
Now think about this: What is there isn't one os that replaces Windows. Instead the industry is an even split.
25% Linux, 25% MacOs, 25% Windows, 25% other.
Then what do you do?
What if your contract requires you to use RealMedia and RealMedia jams ohh Quicktime?

Re:that's weird

[Anonymous Coward]

> The poster is correct in that the lawsuit is apparently the result of a contract between Real and MLB, and MLB is failing to uphold their end of the contract.

"Apparently failing" is the right phrase; the suit hinges on the meaning of the word 'season', as in 'baseball season'. Now, does that include the pre- and post-regular-season games? MLB says no, Real says yes, and away to court they go.

It does seem awfully stupid of Real to have signed a contract without definite dates or specific phrases in it instead of the poorly-worded 'season'.

Re:that's weird

[Anonymous Coward]

> Next thing you know, they'll be suing Click and Clack from CarTalk.

They will if they have a contract with CarTalk saying that CT will broadcast in Real's format regardless of whatever other formats they use. RTFA next time, this isn't an SCO-style suit without merit - yes, Real signed a stupid contract with a vaguely-worded time period ('baseball season'), but it's not as frivolous as you make out.

Multicast

[MrChuck]

I listened to the Stones and to Severe Tire Damage(*) back in 94 with MULTICAST. C'mon people! This streaming crap is over, it's so NCP, so microsoft.

It's just ungraceful and inefficient. Oh wait, I already said microsoft.

Yes, you need a format. Some might suggest OGG, or mp3, but AIFF would work just fine.

From the source, the sound leaves ONCE!

If I listen to it, my little request packet heads towards the source. The routers along the way get the notification that I want to listen to M'Cast address xxx on port P. I get to the source as the first person. There is now a "stream" running to my machine.

If my neighbor decides to listen, her packets go upstream and hit the router we share. DONE, that router gets 1 stream in and sends it to both of our machines. (where right now with stupid cast, it gets 2 in and sends one to each machine). 50,000 people on comcast listening? Fine, the comcast cloud gets 1 feed in and sends them through the it's cloud to 50k people. If 20k are in austin and another 30k are in boston, then a stream goes to each city ONCE and the local routers send them to all the people.

Grace; elegance.

Neither Real nor MS would know crap about that, eh?

-

* STD was, in fact, the FIRST BAND EVER to be played on the Internet's MBONE when they were playing at a picnic at PARC(?) at Van Jacobsen was just looking for something to blast out nearby. Google found me this. I'd hate to actually work to find this stuff...

Re:Multicast

[ezzzD55J]

Yes, that's great for live streams, only.

Re:Multicast

[Anonymous Coward]

it's so NCP
Uh, Netware Core Protocol? Help us out here...

Re:Multicast

[TwistedGreen]

And what stream isn't 'live'?

Re:Multicast

[SuiteSisterMary]

If you've something you're playing, and people want to 'tune in,' that's fine. But that means that they start listening at the point that they tune in; if it's a two hour show, starts at 8 PM, and they start listening at 9 PM, they've missed half the show, and that's that. If they want to start watching from the beginning, that's a new stream. If somebody starts listening five minutes later, that's a new stream.

Re:Multicast

[MrChuck]

If you run a fresh stream replaying from the start every 5 minutes ("tape delay"), then people can listen to that stream. Over 3 hours of replay, that's only 36 streams.

Currently popular technology would use the same bandwidth for just 36 listeners.

With M'cast, from hop to hop would have at most 1 packet flow of (each) stream. Not 1 packet flow per listener.

Think of it like how Pay Per View works. They show the same movie with a 30 minute offset on different channels.

If your 2hr show/keynote/conference has no listeners, no bandwidth is used.

You can setup a new stream every MINUTE(!) starting anew and people would half up to 60 seconds to wait for the start at most and you'd still be using less bandwidth than most small events.

Most stacks can't take more than 10,000 connections at a time. With M'Cast it's just ONE connection per stream, not 1/listener.

And it was good.

Re:Multicast

[SuiteSisterMary]

If you want people to be waiting five minutes, sure. But this is the INTERNET! People expect things NOW NOW NOW!

Re:Multicast

[MrChuck]

Then find, as I wrote, you can do it every MINUTE (or even 30 seconds) and use a gazillionth the resources that point to point "streaming" does.

Or hell, have the "give it to me NOW" trip off a fresh stream if the last one is more than N seconds old.

The absolute WORST case scenario (with N=0) would be the same amount of traffic as MS/Real Streaming. The most likely scenario would be far FEWER streams and far MORE bandwidth.

WHat to do with said extra BW? Well, suddently, these streams could come down larger. Rather than cramming 5000 64bps streams, you could send one high quality stream (voice is fine at 22kbps or even 11 (phone quality is less)).

Re:Multicast

[FreckledGruntBuggly]

Huh? As far as I know, all the players out there support Multicast, certainly the Windows one does. The trouble is, not so many of the ISPs and even less of the in-home routers and NATs will carry it, so clients tend to roll back to Unicast when they can't connect. If you're lucky enough to have a good ISP with good Mbone connect, that's great. The real world often doesn't have the option.

And as others have said, multicast doesn't help with on-demand use.

I work in the TV broadcast space, and we now have concepts like NVoD where the same show is transmitted on multiple channels at slight time offsets, so people can join at multiple times, perhaps every fifteen minutes. Then we have the PVRs in the home. Now, combine multicast as an NVoD delivery system (IPTV), add a PVR function to handle pause and storage, and multicast starts to be useful for a lot of other things as well as Live.

RealOne Player

[C_Kode]

Is intrusive, bulky, to many adds, and usually installs garbage I don't want. (and who the hell wants that crap running in the systray consuming resources?)

RealMedia can follow SCO. I have refused to install in for the last 2 years. I miss some content that I would have like to have watched, but well. Nothing I've seen yet has convinced me to install it agian. I doubt it will.. Unless Real changes there software packaging practices.

Buy a Mac.

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy a Mac you fag.

Why not quicktime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I really don't understand why everyone doesn't just use quicktime. The player is free, it uses open standards based codecs (mpeg4), and it is available on Mac and Windows. The streaming server is open source, free and can be used on many different platforms as well.

Re:Why not quicktime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because it SUCKS ?

- Long load-times
- Small screen
- Big files

The only thing I like is the interface.

Real v Sport

[howhardcanitbetocrea]

Baseball uses a bat Real media runs a racket

You think getting RealPlayer is hard...

[NotQuiteReal]

... try getting RID of it!

Hint - get ad-aware and be prepared to reboot a couple of times to be sure it's Real gone.

Re:What's the other 37%? OGG/linux

[Lotharjade]

What else do linux users use for streaming that could be part of the 37%?

Also, the problem with ogg is that many streaming sites don't offer it. Many players don't offer it either. I have a Creative Muvo NX and it unfortunately doesn't do ogg. sigh...

The only thing Real is good at . . .

[RandBlade]

. . . is showing there is a fate worse than M$ If only BBC News would follow the MLB's lead and drop Real too now, or at least offer a choice, it is so annoying having to install such a dirty player because it is the only option.

Real Just SUCKS hippo weany

[Anonymous Coward]

Real is the "Sneaky Pete" of media players. Somehow, Real thinks everyone wants it up the ass -- going places in one's computer that it does not belong. Fuck-off Real -- insert one finger salute here
In the beginning it was total ass rape, now it justs tickles ye shit. Real will never be able to shake the rap it made... on its' own behalf. There are alot of people how just don't bother clicking anything to do with Real Stupid Player.
So i'm comfortable with the MS dog i Know, rather than the RM dog that likes pissing in the corner. @#%$%(*^%*&^%*&##%$#@)grrrr

Re:mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

WMA, Real Media, and QuickTime blow. I hate having to use windows dll files to watch some video. It is real dissapointing when something like Eben Moglin's speech or things on CSPAN are in RM format only. MPEG4 is the way to go. In this case though, it is just baseball, and anybody stupid enough to watch baseball can't use a computer anyway.

Why realmedia or windowsmedia...

[Anonymous Coward]

...why not use something vendor-independent, such as Vrobis? I'm curious, are there any technical reasons that make wma or realmedia better than vorbis? or is it just not possible to stream vorbis? if not vorbis, then why not plain mp3? that would be a heck of a lot smoother than using some proprietary crap like realmedia.

Enlighten me!

Are they on crack?

[t_allardyce]

So what real is saying is that you simply must buy their expensive streaming server solution. Thats the best one yet!

Not that i like Microsoft, well actually i hate them all.

Re:Latest RealOne Player has *gasp* better manners

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, why not just engineer that in the first place?!?

Real sucked in the past, Real sucks now, Real will suck in the future (but not for much longer, hopefully)

Re:that's weird

[Anonymous Coward]

Real only had to do one thing--suck less than Microsoft--and they blew it. For ~8 years now.

Hurray for streaming media

[Anonymous Coward]

Real sucks, everyone agrees on this.
I am surprised that the usual fools here complain about a Microsoft monopoly. When it comes to streaming video/audio, Real was there first. Years before Microsoft.

But take a look at MS' Mediaplayer 6.4 (still available on every windows PC) and compare it to Real One. Mediaplayer is a small window with a volume control, play/stop/load buttons and a menu. Real One on the other hand plays sounds when you start it, fills half your screen with ads around the video screen, installs a tray icon, a quickstart icon, a desktop icon, keeps prompting you to register, subscribes your email to commercial mailing lists, etc. In other words, it's an obtrusive pain. They just don't understand that channels are dead. If they would remove all that crap maybe it wouldn't take up to a minute to load and start playing.

If people want WMV streams instead of real video, I understand.

But by GOD, I hope those Linux zealots will finally see the light. Look at those FOOLS here. They propose MPEG-1 video and MP3 audio for streaming. Of course, because they are from the early 90's, over 10 years old, and all innovation that happened since then must be sacrificed for backwards compatibility.

Yes, that's the old well-known UNIX/Open source way. Invent something, then keep on insisting that all innovation is bad because people still use 4 MB 386's. Backwards compatibility is everything, unless someone invents something 'cool', then suddenly Ogg is OK.

Face it, WMA 9 is superior. When you do streaming audio, a 48 kbit/s stream sounds great, almost FM quality. For MP3 you'd need at least 160 kbit/s. Which puts it out of reach of all modem users and cable modem users who have a slow subscription.

Standards

[w8300v-2]

If people want 'streaming' content on the internet to work the same as broadcast television or radio, there must be a standard. I can buy a TV from any manufacturer, and it will receive broadcasts from any TV station. There needs to be a standard format for these kinds of things. Until this happens, we're going to continue to be in the mess we're in now..

Re:Latest RealOne Player has *gasp* better manners

[Anonymous Coward]

> the latest incarnation of RealOne Player is actually much politer and less slimy than previous versions!

Well, too bad for Real but they were smily in the past, so now nobody is willingly installing their player anymore, just like the world is waking up to Microsoft's practices.

Real will be the first to fall, followed by Microsoft. Real was once the "only one" in streaming media, just as Microsoft is "the only one" (to most people), but they will both fall, mark my words.

Re:Latest RealOne Player has *gasp* better manners

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad noone will care (except a few). Reputation holds a lot of weight and Real has done well to max out the negative side of it.

Even if they do a 180, until people forget what pricks they are, their hold will continue to decline. Real: R.I.P. and I have no remorse.

Of course, these are just my thoughts; but I feel reasonably sure this is of the average consensus.

That is

[Revek]

Buffering Buffering Buffering stupid

Re:that's weird

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I have read, Click and Clack Tappit have not signed any contracts with Real. If they had, they would be smart enough to know they are obligated to adhere to it.

But, it turns out they are smart enough to not sign a contract to begin with. Real has NOTHING on these guys.

MLB on the other hand was greedy enough to sign. Of course, this is under the assumption Real payed them to be included... uh... I can't see it any other way because Real really sucks.

Who cares, Real Player sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

This company promotes spyware. I hope they get sqwat!

I'm not buying your argument.

[DelawareBoy]

Remember, iTunes is *not* installed by default on Windows machines. Yet, it's growing leaps and bounds, despite WMP being installed. Why? Apple gives something that WMP cannot: the downloaded iTunes / iPod interaction. Real *was* good, but now, it's a clunker, complete with tricky menus, doing everything it can to make you by the software.. (Ever try downloading the "free" version? Assuming you can find the page, you need to give them a lot of information (or you did the last time I tried to download it.)) Please, Real, be creative. Be Innovative.. Do something that no one else has done, or at the very least, be successful at. *then* everyone will try to copy you.! -Delaware Boy in 2004

Authors of Usage Stats and USAToday Porn Article

[divisionbyzero]

are obviously not the same people... QTs numbers would be much higher...

Streaming apps?

[phorm]

Just out of curiousity... do you know of any free applications to stream video from a linux server?

but who controls the other 37%?!

[spamspam]

just wondering

Re:bah - clarification

[mynameis (mother ...]

The original poster was discussing libertarians, whereas your AC reply Libertarians.

A point worth noting, because they mean different things... [Really]

Re:that's weird

[grolschie]

Yup. Gotta agree there. I say get Media Player Classic instead.