The RIAA shows an “abundance of sensitivity.”
Posts Categorized: Media Business
Just how sensitive are they?
I agree with the RIAA
Hell has not frozen over.
The RIAA is behind a compulsory licensing system for mobile phone ring tones, which would make it easier for everyone to adopt the technology. The alternative where royalties are negotiated song-by-song is being pushed by the Songwriters Guild among others.
Radio is another place where compulsory licensing is in effect, and this system was a great catalyst to the nascent radio technology.
Article here in Hollywood Reporter.
Now, if only the music labels would come up with a way to purchase unrestricted MP3s at a reasonable cost… then Hell would really have frozen over!
Google Snags IPTV Executive
This is interesting. From Fierce IPTV:
Back in April the industry got a whiff of Google’s future IPTV plans when the company sent out its feelers for IPTV talent: engineers, programmers and product managers. Now, OpenTV, an IPTV middleware company, has announced that its CTO, Vincent Dureau, has joined Google at a “senior engineering role.” Dureau was responsible for developing OpenTV’s key technologies, global business relationships and, in the early days, building its engineering team from scratch.
Most interestingly, Dureau took the lead of OpenTV’s advanced advertising technologies, even penning a white paper that reads: “We believe that addressable advertising, where specific video ads are targeted to specific audiences will become central to advertising on digital television within the next 5 years… advertisers will be ready to pay premium rates to cable operators who can demonstrate increased efficiency of their advertising network through targeting.”
Just last month, two research scientists at Google developed a way for your computer to quickly identify which programs you’re watching on TV and feed you personalized content based on that information. While the scientists harp on the increased personalization aspects of it, you can bet Google has its eye on an advanced advertising platform that repurposes its keyword advertising scheme for TV. Looks like Dureau could be the one spearheading this initiative.
More from the Fierce IPTV blog link.
Engadget weighs in on Sling Encryption
This article is a party-neutral summary of the At-Large Recorder and Slingbox device encryption issue.
It’s always a delight to read well-written articles. Way to go Engadget!
PC Mag Editor not happy about Sling Encryption
From Stu, one of our best customers and sources of information:
Jim Louderback, the editor of PC Mag, made a mention that his favorite add-on no longer works. He was referring to your Slingbox recorder. This was done on his podcast – What’s New Now? (July 21)
Looks like Sling is going to be facing more competition – not just from Sony’s LocationFree, but also new companies called HAVA and AirEpoch. It’s going to be hard to maintain the encryption policy, especially if the competition is open to recording.
I predict that there will be a permanent recording solution for Slingbox devices by January 1, 2007. Or even earlier if they want to HAVA good Christmas season.
Another great reason to record Sling streams
Here’s an At-Large Recorder customer who used At-Large Recorder and Slingbox to record closed-circuit surveillance video:
“I love the software and it helped catch a break-in at my house. Turned it over to the authorities.”
– Art Gimpleton
This is one example of a very good use of recording technology via a vis Sling.
Fight For Your Right to Record
I posted this on the Sling Community forum, and liked it so much, I decided to share it with you. It’s in response to why it’s such a big deal about Sling encrypting their stream. I feel it expresses what Applian stands for as a company really well.
Why should anyone care? It’s important to fight for your right to make recordings for your personal use. If you have a TiVo, imagine a world without it. Or what if ripping MP3s from a CD became illegal? Every so often, a piece of horrible legislation is proposed to curb your personal recording rights, and so far, none have passed. Even if you don’t own At-Large Recorder, you have a vested interest in retaining the status quo vis a vis your rights to record.
So far nobody’s been able to come up with a good law-based explanation why being able to record your Sling stream is illegal, or puts Sling in any legal risk. Granted there is the desire for Sling not to do more to rock the boat with the Content Owners, but recording and place-shifting are really two distinct, separate issues.
You’re already paying for your Cable or Satellite TV. You can record it via TiVo or your PC and copy it to your iPod. You should be able to do the same with your Sling stream.
Sling and Applian in PC Magazine
We’re still hoping Sling comes up with a way to work with us so their customers can make recordings for their personal use.
In the meantime, PC Magazine has hooked onto the story:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1991289,00.asp
The Sling Encryption Mystery
There’s quite a thread going on at the Sling Community forum regarding Sling’s new encryption “feature” and its impact on At-Large Recorder. Jeremy T from Sling is doing his best to answer the critics, and has made his third post.
The money quote (emphasis mine):
Finally, I’ve tried to be clear that there are issues regarding this topic that I simply cannot discuss. Some of the other users in this thread have guessed at them, and I appreciate those posts. In my last comment I asked readers to sit back and really think about our motivation here. You think we are motivated to try to “screw third parties”? I already stated we plan to have some form of API/SDK coming out down the road. You really think that we want to “screw Slingbox owners”? Why on Earth would we want to do that??
I guess Jeremy didn’t really make it clear that there were other motivators to the decision. Web users, and especially early adopters like those who buy Slingbox devices, are very sophisticated, and the attempt to say encrypting the stream to “protect users privacy” didn’t really make sense to anybody. Likewise with the protecting “content owners” reason. He probably would have been better off saying “I simply cannot discuss” like he finally did in the third post. While nobody likes that excuse, they can respect it at least. I respect it.
The fact that Sling cannot discuss the rationale for the decision makes for an entertaining game of speculation. The Sling Community forum participants certainly have a lot of theories. Since I have no inside knowledge, I get to speculate, too!
Sling has received a huge amount of investment money – $55 million or so. One of the investors is EchoStar. The content people are always paranoid about these new technologies (TiVo has investments from the major networks), and investing in these companies is a good way to keep the technologies under control. One theory is that as a condition for the investment, Sling agreed to ensure the stream couldn’t be redirected. They probably didn’t think it could be done until At-Large Recorder appeared, hence the need to quickly add encryption, and the fact that this was “always on the product roadmap” as Jeremy suggests.
This also keeps them out of possible legal trouble with HBO, MLB any anyone else concerned with geographic rebroadcast issues.
Sling has taken great care to ensure the streams couldn’t be “split” and beamed to several people at once. Theoretically, if the stream can be recorded, it can be retransmitted to several people at once. This breaks the legal protections they have put in place.
I don’t think the “recording” aspect is the cause for the consternation. The way At-Large Recorder works, you can’t really retransmit in real time anyway, as the file isn’t viewable until recording ends.
Anyway, that’s MY theory. We’ll probably never know.
Sling is in a bit of a pickle, in that they can’t do anything and everything to make their product the best it can be. It would be great is they could be more open about the reasons behind the decision, but this may leave them open to legal trouble by recognizing any legal weaknesses publicly, so it’ll likely remain a secret. I believe that if Jeremy T could say more he would – he’s clearly (and rightfully) a little upset about being beaten up on the Sling forums.
Sling and Applian are a little similar, in that we both are pushing the envelope of what people can do with their media. Sometimes we can’t market our products the way we’d like either. Fortunately, people are still able to find us when they want the best tools for recording online video, music or radio, and they tell their friends.
If Sling wants to work with us to make a recording solution that doesn’t put them in legal jeopardy, that would be terrific. It would be great for Sling, and their users. Or maybe products like HAVA and others will add this capability, and they’ll just open it up, as it will cease to be an issue if everybody is doing it. I hope we’ll be able to come up with a solution soon.
Slung Out To Dry
Most hardware companies are delighted when a third party develops a complementary product for their platform. Apple, Microsoft, and many other companies have an active ISV (Independent Software Developer) recruitment effort, as they realize the benefits of others working on their behalf (for free) to make their products better.
When we developed our SlingBox device recording product, we kind of expected the same red carpet treatment. The SlingBox device is a terrific piece of hardware that attaches to your TV, and lets you watch it remotely from anywhere with a high speed internet connection. Sony has a competing product called LocationFree, and if I were competing with Sony, I’d want to do everything possible to make my product stand out.
Sling’s reaction was not what we expected. First of all, they had an issue with the product name, as it used the letters “sling” in it. Kind of a trademark deal. Our conversation went something like this:
Us: “Can we license the “Sling” part, and pay you a royalty on each copy sold.”
Sling: “No.”
Us: OK, how about changing the name to “SBox Recorder.”
Sling: “too close.”
Us: “Hmmm… how about “S Recorder. ”
“Still too close.”
“OK, we’ll call it “Blake’s recorder” or something. ” (Blake is the CEO).
Long pause. “Well, I guess that would be OK.”
Sling: “Your trade-dress is too much like our product – you need to change it, too.” (Our UI was red and grey, in the shape of a Slingbox device.)
Us: “OK – we’ll change the shape to a parallelogram.”
Sling: “No – the angles would be similar.”
Us: “You’re kidding…. OK – we’ll make it a rounded rectangle then.”
Sling: “You’ll have to change the colors, too. Don’t use either red or grey.”
Us: “You’re messing with me now.”
Sling: “No – we need to strongly defend our trademark and trade dress.” (At this point, it was Sling’s IP lawyer in this exchange. She was very polite, and was just doing her job. It’s still pretty ludicrous.)
Us: “bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb”
Anyway, we went ahead and complied with their requests, and came out with At-Large Recorder. Definitely no trademark issues there. I thought we were in the clear and good to go. Today we learn Sling is encrypting their stream transmission, thereby rendering our product inoperable in its present form.
I actually talked with Blake – Sling’s CEO – when we first launched and he was very cordial, although slightly annoyed. Said something about “getting a phone call” about our product. And brought up the trademark issues. That was about it.
So – what’s the deal?
Theory #1: Sling is pushing into uncharted legal territory – removing the geographical limitations on TV viewing isn’t taken very well by Major League Baseball, to name one. Anything they can do to reduce their legal risks may be a part of the strategy.
Theory #2: Sling is going to produce their own recording add-on.
Theory #3: Don’t know. Leave a comment and tell me your theory. Sling representatives are particularly welcome to respond.
Update: Sling responds, and we dig deeper.
Update #2: Digg this story.