VeohTV tunes in another copyright debate
The New York Times’ profile of Veoh Networks in Sunday’s paper includes some interesting back-and-forth on video copyright issues and the control of video that’s posted by content creators.
The VeohTV platform, now in beta, rounds up network television offerings in “channels,” which include the Big Four nets and video giant YouTube.
If you want to watch “24,” no need to go to Fox’s site (or view its banner ads). Veoh says it doesn’t need anyone’s permission to track and play already-existing internet videos. Over to the Times:
By only offering video, VeohTV omits all the other advertisements on the network sites. For example, people who watched an episode of “Heroes” on NBC.com last week also saw for 40 minutes a banner ad for McDonald’s on the same page. VeohTV users watching the same episode would not see the banner.
Rick Cotton, the executive vice president and general counsel of NBC Universal, said that streaming full-length television episodes drives traffic to other parts of NBC’s site and exposes users to the ads on it. And the right to play those shows is valuable, he said, pointing to the still-unnamed venture between NBC Universal and the News Corporation to create an online repository of their TV shows and movies. Sites like MySpace, AOL and MSN have already entered into commercial agreements to display the venture’s content.
“This material has value,” Mr. Cotton said. “The notion of taking it and generating traffic with it needs to be negotiated and needs to be done with the agreement of content owners.” That’s why NBC and the other major studios are keeping close tabs on VeohTV’s business model.
A YouTube spokesman told the Times that VeohTV pre-empts its ads while violating YouTube’s agreements with content originators such as the networks. Veoh says its TV service is just making it easier to do what can already be done on YouTube.
Veoh wants to be part of the big-boy club, so it’s chastly wooing content providers. But this issue, in general, remains a major Internet copyright debate that the courts ultimately will have to sort out. Even if it doesn’t involve Veoh. For smaller players wanting to aggregate video for niche audiences — say a site dedicated to classic jazz clips — this is a pivotal debate as well.
Viacom, of course, is suing Google for $1 billion for massive violations of its copyrights on YouTube. The media giant says YouTube has the resources to remove copyrighted material, while Google sticks to its policy of removing materials when asked to do so.
My money is on a series of Napster-like rulings in which the rich get richer. Or, looking at things the other way, the rich get paid for their work and their massive gambles on programming.
Hooray for Bollywood movies online
I love Bollywood
My favorite film from India is a cheesy thriller called “The Fog”
Then there’s the excellent “Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India”
Anyway, as you’d expect there are many ways to come by Bollywood output on the web, in addition to the IRC downloads and the usual freebies via YouTube and Google. Outlets seem to come and go a lot. Here are a couple:
Rajshri.com offers more than 275 films, 1,400 music videos and about a thousand TV shows. A lot of the fare can be streamed for free; U.S. pricing for downloads ranges from a buck to $10. Among the offerings are “Vivah,” billed as “India’s first movie to debut on the Internet!” Good site.
BollywoodTV has plenty of movies in addition to the TV stuff. Nothing works unless you download the “video enhancement” software Edgestream. Sign-up required as well.
Metacafe stacks up about 735 movies under “Indian videos.” Some are mildly racy; try to contain yourself.
BharatMovies has a lot of full-length content. On a lot of them the grainy images look like they passed through somebody’s camcorder. Movies categories include Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali. As with all of these sites, I have no idea where they stand on copyrights.
Jaman hosts Bollywood fare and world cinema from all continents. Some in high def. Not much for free, but a great place to poke around. Has a program that allows indie filmmakers to post their works.
Aapka Video doesn’t seem to have movies, just good videos. It also welcomes uploads from wanna-be filmmakers, especially if they’re bringing some desi babes. Aapka appears to be the most technically accomplished of the sites — translation: Everything seems to work and look good. Plus, there’s a box on most pages that orients the uninitiated and points us to the good stuff — such as the oeuvre of silicone star Rakhi Sawant
Update (Aug. 3, 2007): Indian web TV portal already a hit
Download, streaming revs rise put at 39%
Streaming and downloaded A/V will produce $2.6 billion in revenue this year, according to the research outfit AccuStream iMedia Research. That’s an increase of 39% from last year, the number crunchers note.
Of that total revenue, only 2.2% is expected to come from movies. “Entertainment,” including TV shows, should register 3.4% Real Networks’ SuperPass video service will pull 4.1%, AccuStream said.
The lion’s share, of course, goes to music, which is predicted to snare 85% via mostly download sellers such as the market-leading iTunes Store. Sports is tagged at 5.4% and news 1.2%.
The downloading of movies, forecast at $60 million in 2007, is up 133.4% over 2006, and is on track to break the $100 million threshold in 2008, AccuStream predicts. “Movie revenue growth has been hampered by limited availability of both front line titles and catalog depth,” the researchers note, to nobody’s surprise.
“Demand for premium content from studios and broadcast networks will boost revenue and share as offerings expand over a 3-7 year period,” commented Paul Palumbo, wonk-in-chief at AccuStream.
Want a copy of the report? No problem. Scrape together $1,900 and “add to cart.”
The MovieStation buddies up to big TVs
Those of us no longer blessed with studio apartments or dorm rooms tend to have the heavy-lifting desktop computers stationed a few rooms over from the widescreen TV set-up. The forward-looking Trekstor MovieStation maxi t.u
Before long, the civilized world will be using full-blown media servers, but this reasonably priced set-up will do for now — it’s simply a tricked-out external hard drive. Users upload files via USB port then browse and select their movies via an on-screen menu. A remote keeps couch potatoes happy. Audio outputs are optical and analog; video connects via composite cable, basically like any decent DVD player. The MovieStation puts out 1080i high-def, but expect storage issues with more than a few of those files.
Other applications include MP3s, standard and HD camcorders and JPEG images.
VeohTV: all over the place
The new digital goodies blog last100 took a test lap with VeohTV, the full-screen P2P aggregator that goes by the slogan “Video Lives All Over the Web.” The application is still in beta, but last100 blogger has posted a fairly detailed review of VeohTV.
Here’s a look at Veoh’s YouTube channel, where, presumably, most of the action is:
Videos played immediately but, as expected, picture quality wasn’t too good blown up to full-screen. Other channels looked much better (such as HD podcasts) but inevitably took a lot longer to load. This is the downside of VeohTV’s open approach to aggregating many video sources into one unified player. By mixing different video formats, the viewing experience varies greatly.
The blog also checked out the live TV service Zattoo, which is available only in the EU.
Last100 is written by London-based journalist Steve O’Hear. Looks like a great place to keep up with streaming/downloading schemes. It’s part of the fledgling network attached to the popular web technology blog Read/WriteWeb.
