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

Fri, Jul 25th 2008 8:26am — Mike Masnick

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

18 Comments

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wasnt me, 25 Jul 2008 @ 9:05am

this is the usual C**P that the Multimedia giants try to pull off.
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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GANBO, 25 Jul 2008 @ 9:12am

More Stupid Execs
FREE promotion is a great thing for all parties. As long as the Redlasso is not selling the 'content', why should the studios care. Oh, that's right, the "Studios" are GREEDY and have no clue!!!! GO Redlasso!!
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Joseph Weisenthal, 25 Jul 2008 @ 9:39am

And now they've been shut down
Just a few minutes after you posted this, they announced that they're shutting down.

http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-redlasso-closes-controversial-site-for-now/
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Emilio, 25 Jul 2008 @ 10:37am

Cool, I hadn't heard of them before.

Bookmarked, in case they manage to tell NBC et al where to go stick it...
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W. Dan Chance, 25 Jul 2008 @ 10:37am

Redlasso
I agree with you that Redlasso was doing NBC and FOX a service by extending their reach into the market at no cost to NBC and FOX. Let's hope the judge is not in the pocket of the networks.
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Mark Baratelli, 25 Jul 2008 @ 10:40am

Give it time
Seems like they'd be fine with Red Lasso if they had the proper agreements in place with the actors and writers and producers of the shows. But currently, I bet they don't. So maybe Red Lasso could go in and act as consultant on the issue and explain the benefits and then the companies could then put into motion what needs to be settled on their end....?
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Scote, 25 Jul 2008 @ 10:45am

This is sort of funny. The industry routinely uses clipping services to monitor the competition and now they are suing a clipping company because it is on the internet.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jul 2008 @ 10:55am

Copyrighted material is copyrighted material... What is wrong with you people? If they did not get permission to use and show the copyrighted material then they should not be showing it, using it etc.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jul 2008 @ 11:08am

...and this what happens when you allow lawyers (whom need to justify their continued existence)to run your business.
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Carme, 25 Jul 2008 @ 12:57pm

First, Universal and Fox are certainly within their rights in demanding to get paid. For their product there is a specific rule - copyright - that (generally) says that if someone does something useful with it they can demand to share the profits. This is not an abuse of copyright, it's using it for its original purpose - making the content more valuable to the creator. So if there's a problem here it's with copyright itself, not some misuse.

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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Kyros, 25 Jul 2008 @ 1:13pm

Fair Use
Ok, 30 second clips? Wouldn't that maybe possibly fall under...FAIR USE? Have we completely forgotten that? 30 seconds of clip footage != copyright infringement. It's one thing to use 30 minutes, a whole different to use 30 seconds, especially to promote something.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jul 2008 @ 11:02pm

Re:
Fair Use is Fair Use... what's wrong with you?
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JFG, 26 Jul 2008 @ 8:45am

Fair use and Promotion
Actually, it depends on the original piece: a lot of broadcast material is very short and a 30 second clip of a 35 second piece is not necessarily fair use. On the other hand, if you take a 30 second clip out of context from a 5 minute piece, you may present a very distorted image of the author's intent. The clips are often used to ridicule, make fun of, or argue with the broadcast material, so that's not always "promoting" the material. Now, the broadcast material, especially from these stations, will most likely deserve it, but that does not mean they don't understand what it does to them.
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John Wilson, 26 Jul 2008 @ 9:26am

Re:
The point you're missing, Carme, is that these two companies aren't embracing a new business model or offering RedLasso a license they're shutting it down.

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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Frederick Twain, 11 Aug 2008 @ 11:34am

Hope for Redlasso
Online Tivo with 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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Frederick Twain, 12 Aug 2008 @ 4:31pm

Hope for redlasso
http://www.atelier-us.com/media-entertainment/article/online-tivo-with-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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China Printing, 29 Jul 2010 @ 1:37am

FREE promotion is a great thing for all parties. As long as the Redlasso is not selling the 'content', why should the studios care. Oh, that's right, the "Studios" are GREEDY and have no clue!!!! GO Redlasso!!
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