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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.'"
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?)
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
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.
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??
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Sigs are for losers
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.
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.