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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.'"
before I die, I'd love to see a company actually try to innovate, instead of sueing.
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.
-- johntracy.com, because everybody else is wrong.
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?)
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.
"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.
"Derp de derp."
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.
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.
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!
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?
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.
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.
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.
And now, for a sig that's a complete copout.
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.