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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.