Hollywood Collectively Loses Its Mind About Latest Set Of Livestreaming Apps
from the get-a-grip dept
If you (lucky you!) don't pay attention to the latest craze among the internet media, you may have missed the mid-to-late-March hype cycle around two livestreaming apps that are available via Twitter. The initial darling was Meerkat, which became this year's annual darling-for-a-week at SXSW. Soon after, it was eclipsed by Periscope, a startup that Twitter bought, just about the same time it pulled Meerkat's ability to push notifications out to users. Both offer the same basic idea: enabling Twitter users to easily livestream video to their followers. Of course, livestreaming is not a new concept. It's been around for ages, and things like Ustream and JustinTV are well-known. Even BitTorrent has tried to get into the livestreaming game. Not surprisingly, livestreaming technology has been particularly useful for newsworthy situations -- and have been used extensively in violent clashes around the globe or at protests like in Ferguson, Missouri last summer.But, of course, Hollywood absolutely hates such things. For years, they've argued that Ustream and JustinTV were destroying their businesses because some people would turn on a television and set up their phone or computer to livestream whatever they were seeing. So it should come as little shock that right after the media hype cycle around Periscope and Meerkat, a whole series of silly articles started appearing about the copyright consequences of livestreaming. The Guardian warned that these new livestreaming apps "could cost unwary brands dear." Billboard warned that these two new apps created a "legal minefield" because a song playing in the background might (*gasp*) infringe on someone's copyrights. The Atlantic warned that these apps were enabling "a new kind of internet pirate." And, CBS really went the distance with a fearmongering headline about how Periscope and Meerkat "threatened" the "multi-billion dollar sports broadcast copyrights," even though they do no such thing (and, in fact, that article speaks to no actual sports officials, whereas when Major League baseball was asked, it noted that it sees no real threat).
And, rather than admit that (1) livestreaming has been around for ages and hasn't really been a serious drag on revenue, and (2) it's not a particularly good user experience for watching broadcast content anyway, various folks in Hollywood lost their minds about these two new services. The main culprit? HBO. After there were a few scattered reports of various Game of Thrones fans using Periscope to broadcast the latest episode of the popular show, HBO decided that it's all Twitter's fault, and who cares about DMCA safe harbors, something must be done, and Twitter has to do it:
"We are aware of Periscope and have sent takedown notices," an HBO spokeswoman said in a statement. "In general, we feel developers should have tools which proactively prevent mass copyright infringement from occurring on their apps and not be solely reliant upon notifications."There are two issues there. First are the takedowns -- which is a part of the DMCA. But the second part is asking for Twitter to go Beyond the DMCA and to start proactively reviewing and policing the content that is streaming over Periscope. This is a bad idea for a whole variety of reasons that both Twitter and HBO should already understand. First, such efforts inevitably lead to takedowns that block important, legitimate, non-infringing speech. Considering how Periscope and Meerkat are designed for livestreaming events right now, blocking those could lead to important content never seeing the light of day at all. The chilling effects could be massive.
On top of that, there is little to no evidence that unauthorized streams of Game of Thrones are doing any harm whatsoever. In fact, Game of Thrones is often the prime example of how unauthorized streams have helped certain content get more attention and more long-term committed fans. Both a director on the show and Time Warner's CEO (who owns HBO) have admitted as much. So why the collective freakout about these new apps?
It seems, as is the tradition among some in Hollywood, any new technology that might possibly be used for some amount of infringement must be loudly condemned and shamed. Despite the fact that this policy never works, and tends to just lead to widespread ridicule, it is the only gameplan that the old guard in Hollywood have. They could embrace these things. HBO execs -- especially with the launch of HBO's new streaming services -- could be highlighting how much better the official streaming experience is than the crappy Periscope/Meerkat experience. But, what fun is that? That, apparently, takes work.
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Filed Under: copyright, dmca, livestreaming, takedowns
Companies: hbo, meerkat, periscope, time warner, twitter
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All of a sudden, he was raided by the FBI, I mean New Zealand.
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It would be an illegal public performance and the world as we know it would come to an end as fire and brimstone rained from the heavens and the rivers ran red with blood.
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2. The Guardian is a UK publication, not Hollywood.
3. You're a fucking idiot.
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2. The Guardian doesn't limit itself to talking about the UK.
3. You, too, are an effing idiot.
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But, hey, let's keep this in mind next time he whines on an article about somewhere other than the US. I have a feeling that his physical location won't matter when he lies about those people.
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much rage
wow
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The true mark of someone who knows they're on the losing side with no cogent points to raise.
oldmanyellsatcloud.jpg
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Mind?
I wonder if we can see this "collective mind loss" live streamed.
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"How come they don't have to play by the same rules we do?"
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The future
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The Problem
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Why coders need to give a flying fuck about HBO is beyond me. Do your own fucking work, or pay me to do your job, if you're incapable.
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In general
In general, we developers feel that it is inappropriate to offload your own business expenses onto us.
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Further is it offloading a business expense, or a tactic to try andbankrupt any possible competition?
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Attacking either head on is a fool's errand. You want to eliminate them, go after the root causes(under-served customers and desperate and/or angry people respectively). Solve those(or at least do your best to), and the problems will drastically shrink.
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Once again we will just continue doing our thing and as always we don't care what you think media companies.
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PR speak to English
"In general, we feel developers should have tools which proactively prevent mass copyright infringement from occurring on their apps and not be solely reliant upon notifications."
English(if forced to be honest)
"In general, we feel developers should go above and beyond what the law actually says that they are required to do, and proactively prevent mass copyright infringement from occurring on their apps, without of course being paid to do so, and despite the fact that they have no possible way to know what is and is not infringing without the actual owners of the copyrights sending the notifications required by the law.
We acknowledge that this will undoubtedly result in a massive number of false positives, as developers will take down a great many legal and legitimate posts on their services in order to play it safe, and will cause a massive drag on any service or site that offers to host user submitted content, heavily burdening them and both running a number of them out of business, as well as stopping many new ones from ever coming into being, but we can confidently say that this is a risk we are willing to take."
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If you want developers to have those tools, then supply them.
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Remember when Hotfile supplied Warner with the tools?
Look what happened to them!
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...but of course, they won't ask why people are watching a low quality stream of someone else's TV rather than turning on their own TV directly. That would open up discussion of exactly how their own business model is losing them a lot of potential revenue, and they can't have that...
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However, I'm not convinced Hollywood/**AAs lost their minds over this. I haven't seen any proof they actually have one.
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