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How Hulu, NBC, and Other Sites Block Google TV
Shortly after the launch of Google TV, it became clear that several networks and services were blocking access. Reader padarjohn points out a blog post from Lauren Weinstein explaining the blocking mechanisms being used and wondering why it's being tolerated. "Imagine the protests that would ensue if Internet services arbitrarily blocked video only to Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers! Or if Hulu and the other networks decided they'd refuse to stream video to HP and Dell computers because those manufacturers hadn't made deals with the services to the latter's liking." Various workarounds are being used to get around the blocks.
The more onerous restrictions legitimate services impose, the more people will be drawn towards services that don't impose such restrictions, like thepiratebay.
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From TFA: "Ironically, NBC -- one of the networks blocking Google TV -- offers a CNBC Google TV application for fans of its news channel."
... because of the generosity of Comcast ... streams just about everything to Google TV: ABC, NBC, Fox, all but CBS ... The ironic part is that the content seems to be provided by Hulu itself"
This seems to clearly be a case of one hand not knowing the other hand is doing.
From T[o]FA: "Google TV isn’t totally a lost cause
Wait... How many fucking hands do I have?
Sometimes I really wonder is these media companies are just run by pre-pubescent boys. Does someone have the invitee list to the CEOs' birthday parties?
I've been blocking certain sites and services for certain groups like forever. If you live in a specific Asian country you haven't been able to send email to me or any of my users for like ten years.
It's my website, and I allow or disallow you to see my content. Just like I allow or disallow people to enter my house. Why should things be different when you are Hulu, NBC or anybody/anything else? Within the bounds of law anybody has a right to discriminate.
You mean like country restrictions?
There's a huge difference between the two, though. The country restrictions are there due to copyright law. Distributers in other countries could bring legitimate lawsuits against YouTube/Google if they started offering videos everywhere (and the distros would likely win).* With the Hulu/Google issue, it's simply that the networks don't want to play nice -- there are no international laws (or even local ones) prohibiting content from being shown on GoogleTV devices.
*Now all this isn't to say that copyright laws need to change, but since the laws are written and in place, YouTube/Google needs to follow them.
They have the right but that doesn't mean that we have to like it.
The reality is that TV used to be free. You put up an antenna and got TV for free. The networks made money by showing commercials. What consumers want is a return to that type of system. We do not want to pay $100 plus dollars for two hundred channels of which we watch 5. This is going to be the new reality and the Networks need to get a grip on it. The Cable TV model is passing. My mother in law lives near Dallas and gets all her TV OVA again. She gets like 30 channels and all the networks for free.
Where I live that isn't an option which is too bad so my wife and I are probably just going to drop Cable and watch Hulu. The one channel we really want is CBS for Big Bang Theory but we are willing to stop watching that to save a thousand plus dollars a year.
If the other networks want to not have us watch that is their business or lack of.
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Read the articles and you will be enlightened.
Love sees no species.
Google should just make an advanced configuration settings page, and let users set whatever user-agent/etc they want there.
As the linked article states, Google does allow users to set their user-agent. The video content sites are blocking on the Flash Version ID, and Adobe does not provide a mechanism for changing that.
Google can't complain about this until they stop the ridculous blocking of YouTube content on certain devices. I have an Android phone and around 1 in 3 videos I try to view on YouTube have a "not available on mobiles" error message.
I would guess that this is a 'security' option given to video uploaders. But why? Why allow someone to watch a video on their desktop or laptop, but not on their mobile? Much is made of having YouTube "built in" to mobiles, so why hold back progress by making the mobile world off-limits for certain content?
'It would be nice to side with Google here, but they do exactly the same on YouTube. Apply restrictions that content producers require.'
Indeed. Playing around with the new Apple TV yesterday, I found that the full-length programmes on UK Channel 4's YouTube channels (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/4oDDocumentaries ) aren't accessible with this device even from the UK (they're geographically blocked as well, of course). In this case (basically the same problem iPhone users have with these videos) it seems to be a combination of the usual short-sighted DRM policy from the provider (which fondly imagines serving their stuff only as flv via rtmp makes it 'secure' - presumably they haven't tried RTMPDump!), and Apple's well-known refusal to provide Flash support:
http://getsatisfaction.com/channel4/topics/create_a_iphone_app_for_4od
With this sort of nonsense going on all the time, it seems like the only thing you can plug into a TV and make full use of all the (freely and legally!) available content is a media PC with a conventional browser.
The more onerous restrictions legitimate services impose, the more people will be drawn towards services that don't impose such restrictions, like thepiratebay.
Yes, when will corporations realize that information services are not scarcity driven, but are plentitude driven? The more shows that you provide, the more customers you will attract.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
They have the right but that doesn't mean that we have to like it. The reality is that TV used to be free. You put up an antenna and got TV for free. The networks made money by showing commercials.
If they block you they are not showing their commercials to you, and they are losing money. That is what you should be telling them. Companies need money, rejecting customers is losing money, or at the very least leaving money (that they could earn) to a competitor.
You don't want goverment stepping in, you want corporate greed winning from stupid RIAA/MPAA-inspired blocks.
Hmm.. well Google ultimately (at the moment) has the most control.
What they did with the Facebook address book is interesting - they said "you either play nice, or we won't" - and that's a VERY interesting corporate precedent they've established.
It basically translates into a simple "quid pro quo" - or perhaps even better "we only have to play nice, when others do".
What I'd like to see Google announce tomorrow -- ..
Okay NBC, Hulu, etc. our new policy: we won't index sites which decide to arbitrarily support devices due to "incompatible business models"
and poof - from one moment to the next there will be a big black smoking crater where those websites once were in the google index.
I don't see why Google.com should be expected to maintain a compatibility database for sites, and return different results so they don't accidentally send Google TV viewers to NBC, Hulu, etc. it's probably easier for them to just drop those offending sites until they "work out their technical difficulties".
Alternatively Google can just put up big red warning messages adjacent to search results that basically say "this site is broken, it may not work correctly" as sort of a warning that "you either fix it, or we'll drop you in 30 days" or something like that.
"I will shit on the towel of anybody who pee's in the pool."
The more I look into this kind of issues, the harder it becomes to not consider them like a bug in the capitalist/free trade system. I am not sure this makes me a communist but hey.. It is hard to think about copyright as something that helps spread and disseminate culture anymore. And this kind of greed-driven move just goes to the opposite of innovation, and possibilities. I thought this economical system was supposed to transform individual greed into overall progress, but the more I look into it, the more broken it appears to me...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
>>>The country restrictions are there due to copyright law.
Close but not quite true. When DVDs were first introduced with Region coding, it was done to prevent citizens from buying products from overseas, like Japan or China, for less money than the home versions. The companies wanted to make that impossible, and thereby "break" the global free market. Sell the DVD for $1 in China, and $20 in the EU or US.
Now they've extended that concept to Online video.
Basically it's all about Control and money.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
So, what if i connect my computer to that 37" computer monitor with HDTV tuner, that is in my living room?
As far as networks care, cases like this are just outliers and they just don't worry too much about them.
I'm failing to see how a pc hooked to my TV is different than the googleTV computer hooked to my tv? Care to explain that to me?
Easy and yet complex. In short: If there is no difference between hooking your computer to the TV or Google TV, then GoogleTV is redundant and should not exist.
If you can think off any reason for GoogleTV to exist, you answer your question on why they are different. I can think of many reasons but I'll let you think off the ones you very likely already know.
Note, I'm not saying I LOVE the fact that this is happening, but I understand it.