Redlasso Sued By NBC Universal And Fox For Making It Easy For People To Promote NBC Universal And Fox
from the you-must-pay-us-to-promote-us dept
Redlasso is an interesting company. Something of an online "clipping" service for television content, it has a nice web feature that allows users to do a search and find a relevant clip -- and to also embed that clip in your own website. It's been used to great effect by various sites that want to provide commentary on certain television content. The actions by Redlasso don't seem all that different than some old school TV clipping services, but (once again) the addition of "the internet" to the situation throws a legal wrench in things. NBC Universal and Fox are now suing Redlasso for violating copyrights.This is especially odd since TV stations are in the business of attracting viewers, and giving people an easy way to promote your content to others (at absolutely no cost to you) would seem like a good plan for attracting more viewers. However, it would appear that the execs suing believe that companies should have to pay TV studios to promote their TV shows. Since it seems unlikely that the TV execs will recognize this any time soon, this particular case will hinge on the question of whether or not Redlasso can prove its claims that this use of clips is fair use. Update: As noted in the comments, the Redlasso has agreed to shut down the site, at least for now.
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Filed Under: clipping, copyright, tv shows
Companies: fox, nbc universal, news corp, redlasso
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they see 30 seconds of material the own rights to and issue take down notices, with out thinking about any positives effects those clips might bring to them.
I wasn't familiar with redlasso before this article but it seems that redlasso doesn't host any of the material it merely links to them(I could be wrong on this).
results of the lawsuit should be interesting.
Redlasso's response: http://corp.redlasso.com/press/Redlasso-052908-01.pdf
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More Stupid Execs
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And now they've been shut down
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-redlasso-closes-controversial-site-for-now/
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Bookmarked, in case they manage to tell NBC et al where to go stick it...
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Redlasso
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Give it time
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Re:
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Second, we should encourage studios to seek new up-to-date business models, like licensing content for web usage to someone - like Redlasso - that knows how to monetize it, and sharing the profits. That sounds like a smart and viable way to recoup their investment in content creation. But when they do that you admonish them and tell them to go back to their old business model (of selling shows to cable channels) and hope that the new business models built around their content by others will somehow help their old one. Taking them to task for daring to try and step out beyond their old business model just doesn't make sense.
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Re:
No new business model just same sh*t different day.
I'd be more impressed if they had tried exactly what you propose but they haven't.
Oh yeah, and what the hell happened to fair use?
ttfn
John
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Fair Use
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Fair use and Promotion
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Hope for Redlasso
This article points out possible Redlasso business responses to an August 4 court decision involving Cablevision cable company. It appears that Redlasso may not die after all.
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Hope for redlasso
This article points out possible Redlasso responses to an August 4 court decision involving Cablevision cable company. It appears that Redlasso may not dissolve after all.
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cool summer days
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