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News Corp. Shuts Off Hulu Access To Cablevision

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-fox-for-you dept.

ideonexus writes "Normally when we advocate Net Neutrality, we are talking about preventing ISPs from discriminating against content providers, but in this case, the content provider is discriminating against the ISP. Is this a new dimension in the Net Neutrality fight? From the article: 'Cablevision internet customers lost access to Fox.com and Fox programming on Hulu for a time Saturday afternoon — the result of a misguided effort on News Corp.'s part to cut off online viewing as an alternative in its standoff with the cable operator over retrans fees. Fox stations in NYC, Philadelphia, and New Jersey went dark at midnight Friday when negotiations between the two broke down.'"

7 of 316 comments (clear)

  1. But of course.... by cpux · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Fox content at Hulu was restored when they realized they didn't have the capability to block only Cablevision customers in the area. All of the NY/Philly area was blacked out, when their beef is only with one ISP.

    1. Re:But of course.... by pavon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Did they really do that? Idiots. It isn't hard to get a list of IP blocks allocated an ISP.

      To me this brings up another example of how the general idea of net neutrality is simple, while the details are not. Most of us would agree that this behavior is anti-competitive, but where do you draw the line? Many sites block entire countries, because they don't have the legal right to serve the same content in all regions. Many sites ban entire countries or IP blocks due to spamming and/or other malicious behavior that has come from those blocks. Is that acceptable? If so, given that you can find malicious behavior coming just about every IP block (botnets), does that mean that it could be used an excuse to ban whoever you wish?

  2. Re:News Corp/Fox is out of control by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ironically, videos delivered over the Internet should be rescuing us from this sort of behavior -- we should not have to worry about two large corporations that we really have no say in the conduct of getting into a spat and suddenly making videos inaccessible to us. Of course, we are, once again, relying on large corporations (Youtube, Hulu) whose conduct we have no say over to provide us with our videos...

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    Palm trees and 8
  3. Re:Net Neutraility? by Aquitaine · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My business is just me (technically) plus a few contractors. At what point are we and our interests no longer individuals? When I hire my first full-time employee? My tenth? My twentieth?

    As a disregarded entity (the technical term for 'I pay personal income tax on everything rather than corporate taxes') there is a lot of co-mingling between my personal funds and my business, mostly because I can wave my hand and decide to pay myself whenever I want, since I have to pay income tax on all of it anyway. Should I be restricted from spending some or all of that money on political contributions or PACs?

    Obviously, the larger my business gets, the more likely its interests will start diverging (or at least running parallel as a separate entity) to my personal interests, but that's perfectly normal. I still have to earn money, and once I've earned that money, why should anyone other than me decide what causes I can support with it?

  4. Re:Who are the good guys? by WillDraven · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's the same with all cartels, be they drugs, media, or internet service: the true bad guy is the government for failing to properly regulate the market.

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    This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
  5. Re:News Corp/Fox is out of control by xda · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've worked for some cable companies and had this explained to me a few times, so I know it to be true. Cable companies even ask their employees to write letters to content providers asking them not to hike their fees.

    I think cable companies have it worse than Dish because they have to pay fees on "homes past", meaning they are paying a fee for every home that could potentially subscribe to the content. I've been told by multiple people "half your cable bill is ESPN, whether you wanted it or not".

    Cable companies have been trying to move to a la carte style where you only pay for channels you want... but they have been getting blocked by ESPN and others threatening to pull out. Cable company with no ESPN isn't going to work. I've talked to some upper management types at these companies and they claim if it wasn't for pay-per-view / on demand, they wouldn't be making any money. I doubt that though.

  6. Re:Oblig. by FoolishOwl · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One explanation of Firefly I'd heard was that, while Fox didn't like Joss Whedon, they knew he was too good to allow the competition to have him. So they got him on contract, then ran the show in a terrible slot for its demographic, messed up the order of episodes, and generally, did everything they could to submerge the show without outright killing it.