Sony's Grouper Picks On Searchles TV 37
pradeepe writes "Sony's Grouper, a video sharing site, has sent Searchles, a social search engine, a cease and desist letter over Grouper videos being streamed through Searchles TV, "the Internet's first video player that empowers users to mashup videos back-to-back with one player using multiple sources like MySpace, YouTube, Google Video, Blip.tv or Grouper." Grouper claims that Searchles has "effectively stripped away Grouper's extensive copyright protection system, including the 'Flag as Inappropriate' button and the link that appears on every single page of the Grouper website to allow copyright owners to report allegedly infringing material, in accordance with the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act." It's interesting to note that Grouper itself is being sued for copyright infringement."
a flaming wasteland (Score:4, Funny)
Knowing Sony, Grouper's probably being sued by Columbia.
Re:a flaming wasteland (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, maintstream entertainment has gotten so hostile I'd rather just play a boardgame with some friends [boardgamegeek.com].
Just sue them (Score:3, Insightful)
If Searchles thinks they're doing an illegal thing, they should stop.
This is really a non-story.
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> This is really a non-story.
I refuse to acknowledge your non-comment on the subject.
This is not the start, just the early innings... (Score:5, Insightful)
This demonstrates that not only have things changed, but incumbent businesses have no clue how to deal with the changes. There are, of course, notable exceptions. By way of exception I might mention that though they are not perfect Google, Apple, Linux community et al, IBM, Sun, and a few others are active in the new business paradigm. By definition they seem to be leading when in fact they are simply trying to stay alive and relevant. The previous generation of entertainment and media businesses were built slowly as technology previously evolved slowly, not so much anymore.
There will be more situations like this but the only way to make sense of it is if the world, not just the US or EU, begins to listen to technology experts, consumers, and visionaries that do NOT work in Redmond.
The entertainment industry is going to have to learn to live on what they can get up front, and stop demanding they get so much up front. Google and others have already figured out how to steal their ad revenue while they were busy trying to not change with the times and technology.
This particular issue will resolve itself, and set examples. That is good for one simple reason: there currently are not enough relevant examples of how to do business. One company has a good plan, then another comes along with a mash-up thingy and now the first company has to complain because they are not getting the revenue. Its all about business, and more importantly about the inability of many businesses to think beyond where they are now; their inability to innovate and change with the times.
No, I'm not a billion dollar inventor or anything, but spotting trends doesn't require a billion dollar bank account.
LESSON: When you set up an Internet business, try to make sure that you are ready to make deals with other people so that your revenue doesn't dry up like a spit of water in the desert.
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You are on the money. I agree with all you have said, except the "stealing." Google and others with "eyes wide open" have seen the new paradigm in distribution and advertising revenue and have figure out multiple ways to capitalize on it. And yes, those that are making deals will survive in some shape or form.
Re:This is not the start, just the early innings.. (Score:1, Interesting)
And that being, the internet is essentially driven by advertising. As are an increasing number of other "entertainment" outlets.
What happens when the advertising dries up? I know its alarmist and smacks of "oh no the oil is going away", but it's not. The first bubble burst because the advertising FAR outstripped the viewer base. The concept is simple, it's called saturation. Aren't we there?
Given that I think we
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And you act like they have no right to sell exposure to your eyes. "Selling your time which they don't own." You're enjoying content that you know is paid for. You're making a bit of a transaction there. It may not be UCC consideration, but you gain and you give up a bit of room for an ad. and adblock aside, every single
DMCA means... (Score:1, Funny)
Odd names (Score:1)
Grouper [groh-per] : A person given to groping, i.e. feeling about in the dark for something, e.g. certain parts of someone else's anatomy, to which access is often restricted.
uh... (Score:1)
Flags (Score:2, Funny)
Awesome I can finally view all those Inappropriately Flagged videos. Hi Five!
Details? (Score:2)
If it's the former, then there are interesting questions about whether Searchles counts as a service provider for purposes of the DMCA exemption, as well as whether a website operator can limit who or what can access their website - and in what manner they may access it - via legal rather than technological means (terms
deep linking wars replayed? (Score:5, Interesting)
If this story were the other way around... (Score:3, Insightful)
And the summary would contain a link to Grouper, but not Searchles.
Telling.
I don't like this comment... (Score:4, Interesting)
Whereas my initial reaction to this piece was more of the kind of "Sony needs to wake up to the realities of the Internet, and if it's not legal to do this, it should be."
I think Searchles is probably pretty cool, but I also think that this is going to end up being a bit like several Linux tools -- for instance, ies4linux. While it's not likely to be an issue for most people, it's probably illegal for them to redistribute IE, and it's certainly not legal to have a copy of IE without a Windows license. However, they probably have avoided trouble because they're so small, they warn you that it might be illegal, and they do it with deep linking, not mirroring -- you actually are downloading IE from Microsoft's website.
Besides: What copy protection, anyway? Sending an unencrypted flash video to a proprietary browser plugin is worse than DVD CSS, and that's saying something!
Moral of the story? I suppose I won't shed any tears for Sony anyway. Sony can do no right, and Google can do no wrong -- but they earned these reputations, and they continually reinforce them. Compare that to, say, desktop Linux, where there are actually far fewer jokes about recompiling your kernel, as people start to realize that it's unlikely you'll have to compile anything while using Linux, ever, unless you want to -- it certainly earned its reputation as a geek operating system, but it's now working to correct that.
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Mashup Videos Back To Back? (Score:2)
Searchles? (Score:2)
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Yum yum tasty cake. Wheres my cake gone!? (Score:3, Informative)
Sony might actually have a point, but this is mostly sabre rattling.
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Must get the companies involved right... Doh. Well you get the idea.
What did you expect - its SONY - (Score:2)
Remember rootkits, remember star wars galaxies
Parasitic not Symbiotic (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
I spaced out... (Score:2)