MLB Says Slingbox Illegal, CEA Thinks Otherwise

The Tie Guy writes "Sling Media's Slingbox allows consumers to watch and control their home television programs from a remote PC or smartphone — a process called 'placeshifting'. Content owners are typically edgy when it comes to the placeshifting topic. However, most don't view Slingbox as an imminent threat that will destroy the commercial broadcast model. Major League Baseball is going against the grain by saying that Slingbox owners who stream home games while traveling are breaking the law because it allows consumers to circumvent geographical boundaries written in to broadcast deals. This has sparked a huge debate that has the MLB, baseball fans, and the CEA up in arms. CEA President Gary Shapiro doesn't agree, and is coming to the defense of Sling Media and place-shifting in general."

Comments

PSP + PS3 does the same thing

[BoboB-69]

The PSP with its new firmware plus the PS3 with its firmware from last week does the same thing for music, pictures, and video. Wonder how MLB will treat it? http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/31/psp-3-50-firmwa re-available-remote-play-over-the-internet/

MLB is authoritating itself into obscurity

[tjw]

I've been a baseball fan for a long time, but becoming less of one as it becomes harder to watch video of the games.

I live in MN, but I'm a Brewers fan. This is quite unfortunate since it makes it IMPOSSIBLE for me to watch Brewers games. My satellite provider will only let me watch Twins games (something i would have to pay extra for), but MLB has my MN zip code in the "blackout area" for the Brewers and Twins, so I can't watch games online through mlb.tv either.

Last year I paid ~$200 for something called MLB Season Ticket just to watch brewers games on satellite. This year it's not available.

I wrote an email to blackout@mlb.com explaining the situation, but the response was essentially "too bad, you're blacked out".

I think this strategy of milking advertising pennies is only hurting MLB in the long run since I doubt they will maintain younger fans now that its so hard to get their video content. Turning down my money and alienating fans like me probably isn't that wise for the short-run either.

Re:MLB is authoritating itself into obscurity

[jonwil]

If this is true, why are the blackout regions for most teams far larger than the catchment area of people who are actually able to go to the games?

Re:the solution

[chimpo13]

A youtube post of this copyright warning will gets The Angry Letter from NFL with the DMCA:

This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast or of any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent, is prohibited.

That's from Wendy's Blog. It took 5 days for that to be DMCA'd off youtube.

The MLB warning is:

This copyrighted telecast is presented by authority of the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball [or Sterling Mets]. It may not be reproduced or retransmitted in any form, and the accounts and descriptions of this game may not be disseminated, without the express written consent [of Sterling Mets].

Also from Wendy Seltzer's Blog. That one has been on youtube since April 25 without a DMCA.

Motives are clear

[Known Nutter]

hardly a surprise MLB is going after Slingbox, since it competes directly with their own service which circumvents the exact same "geographical boundaries written in to broadcast deals".

Re:the solution

[MontyApollo]

I wonder how many geeks actually care about baseball to begin with, especially to worry about watching every game when they are traveling. But I suppose the geeks will be the ones sitting in their hotel room alone watching baseball on their laptop while most other peope will be sitting in a sports bar wathching it.

Re:Obvious question

[DragonWriter]

Why should consumers abide by or even care about an agreement between the MLB and the broadcaster?

Legally, they don't have to. They can receive the broadcast anywhere they can legally receive it.

And they can legally timeshift it by recording it to, say, a videotape. And they can legally take that physical video tape anywhere they want and watch it.

Placeshifting probably ought to be equally legal, but there is a lot less clear case law on it that I am aware of, and in the absence of clear case law, MLB probably has a colorable (though, IMO, wrong) claim that placeshifting is a violation of copyright. The fact that it enables violation of the distribution agreement isn't the basis of the claim of illegality, but it is part of the basis for the claim of damages stemming from the illegality.

Re:the solution

[Lockejaw]

This copyrighted telecast is presented by authority of the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball [or Sterling Mets]. It may not be reproduced or retransmitted in any form, and the accounts and descriptions of this game may not be disseminated, without the express written consent [of Sterling Mets].

Has this restriction ever been tested in court? IIRC, you can't copyright facts.
Or is it just their accounts and descriptions that you cannot disseminate?

Re:The MLB?

[Goldberg's Pants]

NFL does that dumb message too. Bloody NASCAR has started doing it. (Are NASCAR fans even capable of speech? OH NO HE DIN'T... OH YES HE DID!!!)

I'm a baseball fan, but MLB have broken me now. First there's the MLB.TV thing. Blue Jays are blacked out for me. I am over 2000 miles away from Toronto! Somehow I'm claimed as a local market though... Strike 1.

MLB.TV, despite costing $20 a month, now includes commercials from what I've heard. Also, if you get MLB.TV and want to cancel, they make it deliberately difficult to do so... Strike 2.

Now this. If you're paying for the channel, you can watch it wherever you damn well please IMO. And surely, if Slingbox violates the broadcast deals, that's the TV networks problem, not MLB... Strike 3.

You're outta there Mister Selig... Now call the ump a cocksucker and get thrown from the game.

Re:Enforcement by GPS in the receiver

[dgatwood]

You see, that's why slingbox and a portable satellite internet receiver would be a much better solution. If those receivers detected where you were and guaranteed that you would have national network service when you didn't have local service, and guaranteed that you would have local service in any city where local channels were available, it might not be so offensive, but with it cutting off access to your network channels outside your home area, that's just asking to be cracked.

I'd probably start with GPS simulation software if I were doing it, but if the device doesn't use GPS for a time reference, you might even get away with just using a software radio transceiver to do a simple replay attack of the GPS band and cable it up in place of the device's GPS antenna....

Re:Question is Backwards

[bill_mcgonigle]

You friend must have caught one of the morons at Sling. I guess all companies must have the token idiot ... must be some unwritten law.

You've got your idiots, and you've got your corporate ladder climbers. I used to do phone support for a reseller and the only metric tracked was call time and calls handled. A certain one of our techs, let's call him Corman, would pick up a call, listen to the story, and say, "I'm sorry, ma'am, that issue is beyond the level we handle here - you'll have to call the manufacturer. If he was just back from Venezuela that day he'd even look up the number for them.

The customer, not so dumb, would call back into the queue and wait for one of the rest of us to pick up and solve their problems.

Guess which tech had the best performance scores?