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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.'"
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!
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."
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
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.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
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.
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Go canucks, habs, and sens!
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.
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??
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.
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.
PLAINTIFF, Real Networks, Inc. hereby does... ::Buffering...::Buffering...::
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
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.
Real Player: Free as in syphilis.
I have prepared a response, I believe that (buffering, buffering, buffering) the case has no (buffering, buffering, buffering) ahh the hell with it.
I hate sigs.
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?
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
"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...
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.
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.
No Not Again! Its whats for dinner.
<are you sitting down?>
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!
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.
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?
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* 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...