Slashdot Mirror
Class Action Filed Against Sling Media
New submitter DewDude writes: In case you missed it; Sling Media has been forcing advertisements into video streams from Slingbox devices unless you pay for a client application, which is only an option for Apple, Android, and Windows 8 devices. The issue will now head to the courts, as two plaintiffs have filed a class action suit against Sling Media, claiming the company participated in 'bait-and-switch' tactics by charging users for the hardware, then monetizing the streaming of content. The suit notes that Sling does not own the rights to the programming into which they are inserting advertisements.
Putting an advertisement could constitute as monetizing the stream; and Aereo got shut down over basically monetizing streams they didn't have rebroadcast rights to. Sling doesn't have retransmit consent; but a judge ruled that the nature of the service was a private link that only served one viewer at a time. Still, that ruling was made back when you weren't getting forced advertisements either.
:30 to sometimes 3 minutes in length; and you have zero way of opting-out. There's no ability to skip; and even adblock is becoming a tad useless.
They aren't inserting ads over the video stream; what they're doing is inserting an advertisement before it will play your live TV stream. These ads range from
I actually know a couple guys in the broadcast and cable industry who have made heavy usage of Slingboxes for various tasks; one guy I know works for a fiber co-op and they use them to quickly verify if a problem exists at whatever partner is down-linking it, a couple of others use them for remote monitoring, and I've heard of a case or two where they were used for verification of ad-insertions.
I first noticed the ads creeping up back in like, November; it's only gotten even worse as the months have drug on.
Hulu shows ads even on the paid service; Netflix doesn't though; and it's probably against their contracts on content to do so. Sling has no contract over the content we're watching...because it's a private stream and we bought hardware.
Even if the class-action doesn't go through; I'm pretty sure it will have attracted the attention of the content providers...who will likely start their own suits.