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iCraveTV Sued by Networks
heinzkeinz writes "iCraveTV, the Canadian company broadcasting network television signals over the internet, has been sued for copyright violation. Read the story from CBC here. "
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As I understand it, it's perfectly legal under Canadian law to rebroadcast anything that was originally broadcast publically as long as you don't make any changes to the signal (e.g., adding advertisements). Whether charging for it makes a difference, I don't know - but the rebroadcasting itself is not a copyright violation.
I think they might just find a loop out of this one. I havent cancelled my cable service just yet (altho it has crossed my mind.. all the channels I watch are right on there anyway.. plus any reason not to support cable companies is a plus)
But seriously... I think somewhere in that copyright it probably forgets to mention a very specific word. Internet broadcasting. (In fact it probably says something quite specific... and therefor, wont apply to the site)
Do you really think this guy would have shelled out the capital to start this site without consulting a couple lawyers first. I'm sure they went through the copyright papers carefully.. and planned their loopholes in advance.
Furthermore... the networks had to have seen this coming. They should have amended their copyright 3 years ago when it was clear this internet thing wasnt a passing phase.
I personally hope icravetv.com wins... the networks should have forseen this... and protected themselves. When they lose the lawsuit, they should then proceed to jump on the IP bandwagon. I'm sure they could find a way to secure their profits.
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OK. This one is simple, and I can break it down with one short hypothetical.
I am going to start a website that is an EXACT duplicate of SlashDot.org. I'm going to show their ads, but, I'm also going to have MY banners everywhere. I'm not going to ask SlashDot, or Andover.net for permission.
How long will I last?
Not too long my friends.
I am STEALING. I am stealing their copyrighted information, and displaying it to their intended audience without their permission. And that, like it or not, is wrong.
These television stations have paid an enormous amount of money for these programs, these station identifiers and the syndication rights to other broadcasts. They have to recoup these costs by advertising, and being able to PROVE to their advertisers that the viewer saw the advertisement on THAT station. This incident is taking away their way of life, and is wrong.
Now, my prediction:
icravetv.com will be bought out by either:
AOL
Real
Microsoft,
and will be launched as a branded 'broadcast' site, and everyone will be rich, bceause icravetv is now going to be an, um, not household but perhaps, desktop word.
Can anyone say IPO?
Well anyway, you get the idea. What did icravetv.com think was going to happen, if the NFL goes to such great lengths to warn you not to rebroadcast their games? And, this is only one of the major copyright holders that has been infringed upon.
For those of you who might want to flame me, I am in favor of OpenSource, but only if the developer of the product in question grants those rights of his/her own free will. Icrave's CEO's comments indicate that they have no such agreements with anyone.
I don't think there's any question that the Canadian justice system's response will be swift and that they will side with the broadcasters on this one.
I also agree with the technology analyst that is quoted in the CBC piece when he says that the TV networks and cable channels themselves should be putting their own content on-line using one or more multimedia formats like RealMedia, QuickTime, or Windows Media Player (yuck).
Most of the major network affiliates in radio are on-line already through Yahoo! Broadcast or Go Radio. That seems like a good solution for everybody so far.
--
Dave Aiello
-- Dave Aiello
But, that car isn't built with a very finite public resource. When cars are built with in such a way that only 20-30 can operate within a certain area, then they might be comparable to radio signals.
I think that all signals transmitted through public airspace should immediately fall under a free distribution license. Different from public domain. In PD, the work is completely open, you could claim you wrote it and disto it under your own copyright. But with free distro rights on otherwise copyrighted work, as long as you didn't modify it, or claim ownership, etc, you'd be able to distribute it.
The airwaves are too valuable for things that have to be mobile, like cell phones, police radios, and the like, to waste them by letting people broadcast proprietary copyrighted and unredistributable works. I'd like to see all TV, radio, and internet, except for some public service radio channels, and internet via cellular, go to fiber soon.
The cellphone companies have the right idea. While they have lobbied for some laws against listening in on cell calls, they simply encrypted them. The smart thing to do, use technology instead of the law.
Anways, I don't think the idea of commercials as seperate entities is going to exist much longer, they're too easy to edit out with devices like a tivo. But how do you edit out the fact that Ms McBeal is drinking a coke and driving a lexus?
This would drastically change the whole industry. When anyone watching Ally McBeal is seeing the ads, why will they want to limit distribution? In fact, they'll encourage it if they're smart. If you record a show, you'll see the same product placements later. They'll simply expand the nielson ratings to include time-shifted viewings and multiple viewings of taped material.
This goes along with the previous article on Fox television banning Linux from its website. The TV networks don't like the internet. They want to use it as a brochure but want e-commerce to die. No matter what you use it for, RedHat, VA Linux, SGI, IBM and all the others define Linux as an e-commerce server and we saw the effect of that when Fox banned Linux users. Any other company is certainly going to battle the internet as hard as they can.