Microsoft is trying to get into the game a bit late here, but it’s an interesting idea.  They hope that with their new LiveStation system, people will be able to watch TV anywhere in the world.  The deal they’re proposing involves getting the actual broadcasters on board so that you can simply ‘tune in’ to a channel.  It’s not quite clear who would host the servers or encoders for this service but it’s an interesting idea.

I see a problem though.  Any TV station has content from numerous different sources that they have contracted with.  It will be a nightmare for them to get the licensing straightened out.  I picture the local news running at 5:00pm and 6:00pm and then the channel basically being blacked out while other content is being played.

Until the media world and content owners realize that their grip on content and control is quickly going away, services like this aren’t going to do very well.

Read more here

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These guys have played catch-up for a while, but it looks like they have a true Slingbox competitor on the market now.  And to top it off, you can record the stream at the other end in MPEG-4 format.

http://www.myhava.com/product_hava_gold.html 

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While digging around a few political sites the other day, I came across a little posting from potential presidential candidate Fred Thompson. He was discussing the fairness doctrine and how it no longer applies. But the interesting part was at the very end, and I think it directly applies to the shifts going on in placeshifting these days:

I’ll tell you something that those who want to control the media apparently don’t know. Everyday, more people are listening to streaming radio on the Web and downloading podcasts. Some popular talk shows skip radio altogether and go straight to the Internet. You can even hear talk shows on Web-enabled telephones if you want, and that will get much easier and cheaper quickly.

If the current stars of talk were pushed off the radio dial, they’d get their audiences anyway. The era of controllable media is over, and nothing will ever bring it back.

You can read the rest over at imwithfred.com

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Ok, now this is just getting weird.  First MLB makes threatening remarks about possibly suing Slingmedia.  Then, the NHL signs a pact with them.  And now, you can win a Tony LaRussa signed Slingbox if you make a video of yourself slinging the 2007 All-Star game??

The bleacher report has more… 

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SAN FRANCISCO & FOSTER CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CBS 5 (KPIX-TV), and Sling Media, Inc., a digital lifestyle products company, today announced the implementation of Slingbox technology combined with 3G wireless data and still video cameras to deliver live and still video feeds as well as live in-car broadcasts from around the Bay Area.

Currently, CBS 5 has 28 live cameras, all of which are supported by Slingbox technology. Seven out of nine bridges spanning the Bay Area have a camera, as do major thoroughfares and airports. CBS 5 uses live video from these cameras on air and can also make the reports available for viewing on the CBS 5 website (www.cbs5.com). CBS5.com also features live still views from all 28 cameras at any time via a desktop, laptop, or compatible mobile web browser.

“On April 30, 2007, for the first time ever in television, CBS 5 used Slingbox technology to send a signal back to the station for broadcast from a moving vehicle. As a result, we were able to watch our reporter’s progress as she drove through rush-hour traffic in areas affected by the I-580 freeway collapse on April 29. This is another example of the way digital technology is changing television news to the benefit of viewers,” said Dan Rosenheim, vice president and news director of CBS 5.

“Sling Media is thrilled to see CBS 5 use our Slingbox technology in innovative, cost-effective, and compelling ways that benefit their viewers,” said Rich Buchanan, vice president of marketing for Sling Media. “The Slingbox was designed to transmit a video feed across the Internet for viewing on a remote display. CBS 5 has taken this one big step further and we couldn’t be more impressed with the way they have implemented our technology.”

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Note to entrepreneurs hoping to build a business using illicit content: don’t grant extensive interviews (complete with pictures) to the Wall Street Journal. That’s what a pair of aspiring hackers did back in April when they described how their service, YouTVPC, allowed users to watch streaming TV shows and movies without charge. Now, the MPAA is cracking down on such sites, filing a lawsuit against both YouTVPC and Peekvid this week.
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The case was filed Tuesday in a California federal court. The gist of the suit is that businesses should not be allowed to prosper from illicit material, even if they do not host it. Both YouTVPC and Peekvid provide access to some of the most popular video content in the world, but they do so by linking up other sites (many of them outside the US) where the content is stored. This allows them to claim that they are doing nothing illegal, even though providing access to this unlicensed material is the extent of their business.

More over at arstechnica.com

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There have been a number of recent news stories revolving around SlingMedia and the general concept of placeshifting. These articles tend to revolve around several themes, but the one I want to focus on here is the antiquated concept of geographical distribution rights.

Television companies, content owners, sports leagues (and sometimes teams) have built an amazing patchwork of geographical ‘rights’ to distribute their content. This was all well and good when the only way to receive the content was with an antenna If you couldn’t receive the broadcast, you were pretty much out of luck. An interesting discussion of actual sports geography can be found in this article at Salon.com. In some cases the ‘local’ market for sports teams was hundreds, if not thousands of miles from the actual stadium. This meant that people couldn’t watch their favorite team due to licensing, advertising and other revenue agreements.

Does all this sound a little ridiculous to you? Ten years ago it was the status quo and everyone just kind of lived with it. MLB.com came along and started to change a bit of the scene. You could now download and/or stream your favorite games right on your computer. This was great for fans who no longer lived near their team and still wanted to catch the action. But guess what… MLB.com was still adhering to the odd geographic restrictions and blacking out games accordingly. Once again, the big players were trying to tell consumers how and when they should be able to watch their content. We didn’t really have a choice in the matter until placeshifting devices really started to hit the scene.

Now, people who have a Slingbox can watch any programming anywhere in the world. This is causing some…. problems for the big players in the industry. A lawyer friend of mine said that “The Slingbox makes content owners uncomfortable, and when big companies feel uncomfortable, they usually sue.” That about sums it up for big companies. The weird thing though is that SlingMedia has yet to be sued. There are a lot of words flying around and threats being made, but the rubber hasn’t hit the pavement yet.

Anyhow - It’s going to be a tough road ahead for content owners and distributors as the landscape changes regarding consumer behavior.  Consumers want to be able to do what they want, when they want with the content that they have paid for.  The more other people try to control that, the more consumers are going to push back.  Media companies are going to need to evolve their business models to reflect the reality of new distribution methods, or they’ll get left in the dust.

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Gogomedia just released a potential Slingbox competitor.  Although it offers similar functionality to the Slingbox, I don’t think it really compares.  It also doubles as a wireless access point, QoS device and security system, among other things.

You can check out pictures and a short review at hexus.net 

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The Copyright Act of 1976 is the bedrock of our intellectual property rights laws. Because the last major legislation on the issue had taken place in 1909, this new act importantly codified the rights of the US copyright holder in a modern era, including consideration of technologies like radio, television, motion pictures and sound recordings. The act not only defined the rights of the copyright holder, but also the rights of the user of the copyrighted material, in defense against claims of copyright infringement. The hope was to create laws that would strongly protect intellectual property, while giving readers, viewers and listeners the right to use the materials without fear of frivolous claims of copyright infringement.

If you’d like to read more about the 1976 act click here.

If you REALLY want to read more, go here.

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If you’re one of the hundreds of thousands of folks who have gone down to Circuit City or Best Buy in recent years and bought a Slingbox, you were probably surprised to read recently that Major League Baseball called the device illegal. You probably asked yourself, if it’s illegal, why can I pick one up at the mall?

The truth is, placeshifting technology is so new, that there is no case history to clearly define the legality of it. There are some very relevant cases that outline the rights of copyright holders and the rights of the users of copyrighted material, but those cases don’t speak specifically to placeshifting. That’s why you can have a successful company like Slingmedia, raising millions of dollars from new investors everyday, while major US institutions are calling its technology illegal. That also may be why MLB doesn’t rush to court to shut Slingmedia down: they don’t know for sure that they’d win.

I’m going to try and outline some of the basic legal issues to prepare ourselves for the legal battle we may soon see over placeshifting.

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