News Corp. Shuts Off Hulu Access To Cablevision 316
ideonexus writes "Normally when we advocate Net Neutrality, we are talking about preventing ISPs from discriminating against content providers, but in this case, the content provider is discriminating against the ISP. Is this a new dimension in the Net Neutrality fight? From the article: 'Cablevision internet customers lost access to Fox.com and Fox programming on Hulu for a time Saturday afternoon — the result of a misguided effort on News Corp.'s part to cut off online viewing as an alternative in its standoff with the cable operator over retrans fees. Fox stations in NYC, Philadelphia, and New Jersey went dark at midnight Friday when negotiations between the two broke down.'"
News Corp/Fox is out of control (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of the Dish Net/Cablevision customer won't see beyond "my channels are gone" and switch to a different provider. That is exactly the wrong thing to do. Dish Net/Cablevision are fighting to keep our rates down, but they can't do it if everybody jumps ship. Dish won the recent battle against Fisher Communications, they were trying to raise their rates 78% for over the air, tax payer subsidized "free" channels. Fisher Communications was already the highest paid among their piers, and wanted to nearly double their rates.
Re:But of course.... (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think this is as easy as [arin.net] you think [he.net]. Search for "Cablevision" and you're suddenly in a maze of twisty little /24s, all alike.
Re:News Corp/Fox is out of control (Score:2, Informative)
Ironically, videos delivered over the Internet should be rescuing us from this sort of behaviorOf course, we are, once again, relying on large corporations (Youtube, Hulu) whose conduct we have no say over to provide us with our videos...
What's ironic is that the Fox shows that cablevision dropped and are available via hulu are passing through people's bodies for free right now. A $40 antenna should pick up Fox in most markets. The HD picture is actually seems better over the air compared to cable. The only time I use my set top box now is for the DVR and for some channels that are only available through the STB. I'm planning on building a mythtv box to fix that. Unfortunately there's one channel I can only get through a cable/sat/fios provider that I need.
Re:Access Denied to Fox? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:no one blames the fans? (Score:2, Informative)
Wraiths = Stargate Atlantis. Reavers = Firefly. Something tells me you didn't pay much attention.
Re:Dish charging customers in the process. (Score:3, Informative)
I heard on the radio the other day on the Clark Howard show that Dish is still charging their customers full price for the News Corp channels that people paid for ( I guess you have to get a premium package or something to get them) even though they aren't receiving them
It is early in the dispute. With the Fisher Comm. dispute, Dish customers were given $1/month off their bill for that lost channel. $1 doesn't seems like much, but the locals run $5/month for about 8-12 chans, so it was appropriate. Dish hasn't had time to make that kind of decision, but I think they will if this drags on longer. But you will probably need to call in and ask for it.
Re:no one blames the fans? (Score:5, Informative)
Firefly has a 9.5 rating on IMDB [ahttp]. Very, very few programs have ever accomplished that. As for ratings, they are also affected by time slots, moving programs around, and showing the episodes OUT OF ORDER. And yes, the media blitz that was planned for Serenity was cancelled at the last minute by the studio, so it had to sink or swim purely by word of mouth. With DVD sales, it still managed to better than break even, although not by much.
Yea, Family Guy had lousy ratings and was cancelled by Fox. Right before it set a new record for DVD purchases of a TV show. And they cancelled it yet again after that.
Re:But of course.... (Score:5, Informative)
Many sites block entire countries, because they don't have the legal right to serve the same content in all regions.
Note that we should not confuse copyright with idiotic contract terms attempting to manufacture a licensing model.
Obviously a website (or a TV broadcast antenna, or a book manufacturer) has to obey copyright law at that location. Obviously they have to license any relevant copying or distribution rights, at that location.
The website *is* licensed to serve the content. The issue is contracts that require websites to block IP address ranges in some warped attempt to simulate licensing of the person at the other end.
A TV show can license a TV broadcast antenna that happens to be in the US, but there is nothing "regional" about licensing. The copyright holder is not licensing the people who receive it, he is licensing the broadcast antenna. Someone in Canada does not need any license at all to turn his TV to that channel and receive it. The most the copyright holder can do is get the antenna station to sign a contract promising to point the antenna away from Canada. There is nothing "regional" about any of the the copyright licensing itself. The station has the licensed right to transmit. If someone in Canada, or even Japan, has a really good TV set and can pick up the signal that is not a violation of any license.
A book author can license a book manufacturer who happens to be in the US, but there is nothing "regional" about licensing. The copyright holder isn't giving any sort of license for "regional readers". The copyright holder is not giving any license at all to any readers, because under copyright law there is no such thing as a license to read. People without licenses can just plain read, regardless of any permission the copyright holder wants to grant or deny. The most the book author can do is get the book manufacturer to sign a contract promising not to willfully mail the book out of the US themselves. The manufacturer is licensed to print copies. There is no license violation if someone in Japan buys the book secondhand from someone in the US and reads it. The person reading the book in Japan doesn't involve any sort of "regional licensing" because they don't need any license at all to read it.
The same goes for websites. A copyright holder can ask the website to sign a contract promising to block various IP-ranges, but is just an effort to manufacture or simulate some sort of regional idea. Aside from the contractual promise to block certain IP addresses there is nothing actually regional about any of the copyright or licensing. And is is false and stupid to try to use IP addresses in that manner. Yes, IP addresses are usually pretty accurate at telling you were the other end is located, but it is a grossly flawed assumption. Hopefully the increase of proxies and advancing internet technology will make it increasingly obvious that an IP address is not a location, and that trying to us IP addresses to limit websites to national borders is impossible and stupid.
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Re:Solution (Score:1, Informative)
The price of a good antenna and amplifier combo is about 1.5 months cable bill (roughly $160). I got my antenna at Radioshack on hypermega clearance for 16 bucks. I got a distribution amplifier for $60 and plugged it into my house's cable wiring in the attic. I get about 23 channels this way including all major networks and I'm semi-rural. That cable subscription has saved me well over $1K this past year and I haven't missed a damn thing. Seriously, this is a good way to stick it to Rupie and get some extra cash to spend.
Re:Oblig. (Score:3, Informative)
I believe the term, when applied to 30+ year old adults, is murder.
You just need to be a little more generous in how you apply the term limit.
Anything up until the 150th trimester is fair game?