Start-Up NimbleTV to Move Users' Pay TV Channels Online...

The company is testing a streaming service that wants to make more TV content available online, but the company says it wants to ensure that pay TV and content providers continue to get paid.

Pay TV operators have acknowledged that they have been slow to make available TV content online to their subscribers in the so-called TV Everywhere initiative.
Now, start-up NimbleTV plans to speed up the process by starting to make some consumers' pay TV packages available on the Web.
Unveiling its service on Monday, it called it "a game changing new subscription-based TV platform that for the first time enables customers to access all of their television from anywhere in the world, on any device."
The company, whose investors include venture capital firms Greycroft Partners and Tribeca Venture Partners, as well as media firm Tribune Co., will begin testing its service, which streams a complete pay TV subscription package of networks, with a limited number of users this week. The service also uses a virtual DVR that can record thousands of hours of content.
Unlike Netflix, the company isn't positioning itself as a potential alternative to cable or satellite TV providers, but simply offers to move their programming to digital devices.
"NimbleTV is based on the simplest idea: customers should be able to access the TV they pay for wherever they happen to be," said NimbleTV CEO Anand Subramanian. "Today, the groundbreaking technology behind our service makes `TV everywhere' a reality - with more options, high-quality viewing on any device, watchable from anywhere."
In a nod to entertainment and pay TV companies, he also emphasized: "Our model is predicated on the belief that providers and content producers should be paid. NimbleTV is a solution that's both consumer friendly and industry friendly."
Asked about Aereo, the start-up backed by Barry Diller's IAC that repackages broadcast channels into a subscription streaming service, Subramanian told the New York Times that while his company doesn't need pay TV operators to approve its service, NimbleTV "went to extreme lengths" to comply with laws.
The NimbleTV test run will come in New York City and will be limited to a suite of 26 networks that the company will pay for, the Times said. NimbleTV's monthly fee will likely be around $20, according to the paper.
The company said in a statement that its price will include the provider subscription at cost, plus a fee for services, such as subscription set up and management, as well as the functionalities of portability and DVR services. "Customers make payments directly to their providers with NimbleTV acting as a payment service," it explained.

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Zediva to Appeal Hollywood Injunction to Ninth Circuit...

Zediva, the online movie streaming service that made waves earlier this year by "renting" recently-released movies to customers, has officially provided notice that it is going to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals with hopes of overturning a preliminary injunction that suspended its operations.

In August, Hollywood studios successfully obtained that injunction by arguing that Zediva's service constituted an illegal public exhibition of its copyrighted material.

Zediva countered that it was engaged in private exhibitions of movies merely intended to offer the public a more convenient way to view them. Zediva allowed its customers to rent both DVDs and DVD players from afar and remotely control each over the Internet, arguing the method of delivery was similar to putting a "longer cable" between a DVD player and individual viewers.
California federal judge John F. Walter rejected that view. In his order, the judge agreed with the studios that Zediva needs the permission of copyright holders to operate its service.
The company is now reaching for a higher authority to determine whether its service is consistent with US copyright law. On Wednesday, Zediva provided notice that it was appealing.
Meanwhile, the MPAA is still looking to spread news about its success.

On Thursday, attorneys for the movie studio asked Judge Walter to consider publishing his injunction order in the Federal Register so that other judges around the nation currently overseeing Internet copyright cases would have the benefit of seeing what they believe to be an astute analysis of the "transmit" clause in the Copyright Act and what it means for Internet streaming transmissions to be "to the public" under the clause. The plaintiffs also say they would be more than happy to submit the judge's opinion on his behalf to the Westlaw database.
Meanwhile, Zediva has really suspended shop, telling customers on its website that the company is "having to lay off our DVD-changing monkeys."

Those monkeys were unavailable for comment. At least one is thinking about filing a wrongful termination action. A few are planning a rebellion against their evil human overlords. The others are busy on typewriters reproducing that long-rumored Shakespeare sonnet.

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Current TV – 50 Docus To Se Before You Die

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ITVS Celebrates 20 Years with Free Online Documentary Film Festival

ITVS CELEBRATES 20 YEARS OF FUNDING AND SERVICE TO INDEPENDENT FILMMAKERS WITH THE ITVS INDIES SHOWCASE :

Online Film Festival Streams 20 Acclaimed Docs for Free Through September 22

The Independent Television Service (ITVS) is turning 20. To celebrate, we're launching the ITVS Indies Showcase, a free online film festival featuring a succession of 20 unforgettable documentaries July 25 to September 23. We're fortunate to be able to honor the extraordinary contributions of independent filmmakers to public television.

Each full-length program will stream for free for three days on

http://itvs.org/indies-showcase where viewers will also find a timeline of ITVS's history, film trailers, clips, interviews, an audience award contest, and more.

The ITVS Indies Showcase line-up represents a sample of the 1,000-plus productions ITVS has supported as the country's leading provider of independent films for public broadcasting.

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Amazon Instant Video Streaming Service Now Offers More Than 100,000 Movies...

Recent content deals with CBS Corp. and NBCUniversal have also expanded the lineup of Amazon Prime as the e-tailer competes more aggressively with Netflix in the streaming video space.

NEW YORK - Amazon.com said Thursday that its iTunes-type Amazon Instant Video service now offers more than 100,000 movies and TV shows, while its subscription-based Amazon Prime service has more than 9,000 movies and TV shows available for streaming.

The Amazon Prime content milestone was reached based on previously announced content deals, such as ones with CBS Corp. and NBCUniversal.

Meanwhile, Amazon Instant Video has content from all major studios and networks and regularly adds more titles as they become available. Earlier this summer, Amazon had reported that Amazon Instant Video had 90,000 content items available.

Amazon, led by CEO Jeff Bezos, has been expanding its streaming video programming lineup as it has competed more aggressively with video streaming powerhouse Netflix.

Amazon Instant Video offers new releases and classics for purchase or rental on an a la carte basis starting at $3.99, while Amazon Prime is a $79 a year shipping service that has been packaged with video offers.

"We are focused on offering our customers the very best selection and are always working to expand our already extensive list of great video content," said Steve Oliver, director of video at Amazon. "The 100,000 titles on Amazon Instant Video range from new hit blockbusters to old favorites, with more than 15,000 of those titles available in HD, and popular TV shows available the day after they first air."

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Walmart's VUDU Steps Up Competition in the Streaming Space...

Streaming service is now available on Walmart.com, which GM Edward Lichy said attracts 1.5-2 billion visits annually.
Aiming to grow its reach in the streaming business, retail giant Walmart said its VUDU movie streaming service, beginning today, is also available at Walmart.com/vudu.

Netflix Analysts Differ on Outlook as Stock Falls After Latest Earnings

Netflix Raises Combination Streaming and DVD Subscription Fee By 60 Percent
The company believes the move will drive increased visibility and transactions, as Walmart receives 1.5-2 billion visits annually, according to VUDU general manager Edward Lichty.
"By incorporating digital movie content into the Walmart.com entertainment shopping experience, we're enabling customers to easily choose how they want to enjoy their entertainment content--whether that be through a physical DVD, digital streaming or both," he said.

Netflix Analysts Differ on Outlook as Stock Falls After Latest Earnings
Walmart.com/vudu will offer the same titles and pricing as that which is available on VUDU. Movie rentals range from $1.00 - $5.99, movie purchases from $4.99 - $19.99, VUDU 3D movie rentals from $3.99 - $6.99, and VUDU 3D movie purchases from $11.99 - $21.99.
Purchased movies are available to be viewed on Walmart.com, VUDU.com, or from VUDU-enabled devices, including supported HDTVs, Blu-ray Disc players and PlayStation3.
Lichy reported that the VUDU customer base has tripled since Christmas (though VUDU didn't provide specific figures).

He added that VUDU offers more than 20,000 titles and the service has been increasing by thousands each month, particularly in the area of television content. In recent months, VUDU added the first seasons of Glee and Modern Family.
Earlier this month, Netflix upped the price of its unlimited streaming and DVD service from $9.99 to $15.98. Netflix also increased its spending to acquire additional streaming rights to movies and TV programming.

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Amazon's deal with NBCUniversal could open doors for new tablet...

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Hollywood Studios Win Injunction Against Zediva...

A federal judge has granted the MPAA a preliminary injunction against Zediva, a service that touts itself as a DVD rental service but the movie industry saw as being engaged in illegal online streaming.
Zediva quickly became popular earlier this year by cutting through the kind of red tape that has prevents outlets like Netflix and Amazon from offering newer films. The company rents its users a DVD player and a DVD, and customers use their computers like remote controls, playing a movie from afar
The business of Zediva depends on a controversial interpretation of copyright law.
Instead of getting explicit licenses from Hollywood studios to offer movie streaming to the public, the company believes it is merely "renting" DVDs for private exhibition.
In April, the movie industry sued and challenged this interpretation, believing that Zediva was offering an unauthorized public video-on-demand service.
On Monday, California federal judge John F. Walter granted the MPAA a preliminary injunction and just as importantly, has sided with the MPAA on the public vs. private debate. The judge cites case law and old reports by the House of Representatives at the time of the adoption of relevant copyright statutes to come to his conclusion that Zediva transmits publicly instead of renting privately.
The judge concludes, "In this case, Defendants are violating Plaintiffs' exclusive right to publicly perform their Copyrighted Works by transmitting those Copyrighted Works to the public over the internet, without a license or Plaintiffs' permission, through the use of Defendants' Zediva service."
The parties now have a week to agree on an injunction that will be consistent with the judge's order before the case continues.
The MPAA is cheering the development of having gotten the judge to accept its interpretations of copyright law.
"Judge Walter's decision is a great victory for the more than two million American men and women whose livelihoods depend on a thriving film and television industry," says Dan Robbins, senior vp and associate general counsel for the MPAA in a statement.
Meanwhile, Zediva says it intends to continue fighting.
"Today's ruling represents a setback for the hundreds of thousands of consumers looking for an alternative to Hollywood-controlled online movie services," says Zediva a statement. "Zediva intends to appeal, and will keep fighting for consumers' right to watch a DVD they've rented, whether that rental is at the corner store or by mail or over the Internet."

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Senate Committee Votes to Make Illegal Streaming of Movies, TV a Felony...

The Commercial Felony Streaming Act is supported by AFTRA, the DGA and other Hollywood unions.
Moving to close a possible loophole in the laws against the pirating of movies, TV shows and other intellectual property, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved making illegal streaming of video over the internet a felony in most cases. The proposed law will now go to the full Senate for consideration.

The Commercial Felony Streaming Act (S. 978), introduced by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Cornyn (R-TX), reconciles a disparity between the current law and streaming of content and peer-to-peer (P2P) downloading.

This legislation is supported by the Obama administration and a broad entertainment industry coalition, including the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), AFTRA, Directors Guild of America, IATSE and SAG. Others who have pushed for passage include the MPAA, the Independent Film & Television Alliance and the National Association of Theatre Owners.
"We commend the Committee for moving this important piece of legislation for consideration by the Senate. It will close a gaping hole in the law and go far in protecting the livelihoods of theater employees from the threat posed by illegal streaming," says NATO President John Fithian. "To the technicians, designers, construction workers, and artists who support their families through their work in entertainment, there's no difference between illegal downloading and illegal streaming – it's all theft that hurts their work, their wages and their benefits.
"This bill will help ensure that the punishment for these site operators fits the crime," says Michael O'Leary, Executive Vice President, Government Affairs for the MPAA.

"The illegal streaming of motion pictures and television programming is as financially devastating for our industry as is illegal downloading," says IFTA President Jean Prewitt. "Stealing is stealing, regardless of the means in which the product is being received.

The bill makes it illegal to stream video for commercial purposes. The penalty is increased to up to five years in prison when it involves 10 or more instances of streaming over a 180-day period. The retail value of the streamed video must exceed $2,500, or the licenses to the material must be worth more than $5,000.

The bill follows the suggestion made two months ago by the White House Office of U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement which urged Congress to make illegal streaming a felony.

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MPAA Sues Movie-Streaming Service Zediva...

UPDATED: It files a copyright infringement suit, claiming Zediva illegally streams movies to its customers without obtaining required licenses from the movie studios.

The MPAA is taking action against one of the hottest, if legally questionable, online streaming services, Zediva, which has gained a boisterous following since its launch earlier this year by going places that Netflix won't -- streaming relatively recent films like The Fighter, The Social Network and Black Swan.

Zediva claims its business model is innovative yet completely legitimate. The company rents its users a DVD player and a DVD, and customers use their computers like remote controls, playing a movie from afar. Streaming 10 movies costs users only $10, a cheap enough price that consumers, perhaps looking for piracy alternatives, have been signing up in growing numbers.
The question, though, is whether Zediva needs a studio's license before exhibiting these films to audiences.

Zediva believes itself to be akin to a traditional brick-and-mortar rental company like Blockbuster in the 1990s. It points out that when a customer "rents" a movie, that film is taken out of circulation. Zediva doesn't create a digital copy. Instead, it's just playing a video remotely at a customer's bequest in what it deems to be a private exhibition.

In a federal copyright lawsuit filed Monday in California District Court, the MPAA disputes the private nature of the streaming service. Instead, the movie industry believes that Zediva is infringing its "exclusive rights to perform their works publicly."

According to the complaint, Zediva's comparison of its service "to a rental store is disingenuous, and Defendants are attempting to rely on technical gimmicks in an effort to avoid complying with U.S. Copyright Law. Defendants operate an online VOD service, not a neighborhood rental store."
Zediva will likely hope a court will see this issue similar to how the Second Circuit Court of Appeals saw a plan a couple years back from Cablevision to begin offering its customers remote storage DVR capabilities for television programming. In that lawsuit, studios sued on the ground that Cablevision was violating its copyrights and its exclusive authority over public performances, and similarly to the latest lawsuit, claimed Cablevision had created "an unauthorized video-on-demand service."
The Second Circuit disagreed, ruling that Cablevision had no control over what programs were being delivered and saying that a single customer transmitting to oneself wasn't any more public than a customer recording a program with his or her own DVR.
However, television is a different bulwark than movies. By the time Cablevision's remote-DVR plan had hit the court, services like Tivo and Slingbox had already established itself on the marketplace without much legal challenge. Cablevision was merely asking a court to let it take a step a few mere inches forward.
In contrast, movie studios are arguing that Zediva's plans will upend their business model and relationships with iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, and others, and can point to its own body of favorable case law on the subject.
Copyright scholar James Grimmelmann, for one, points to several cases that will work against Zediva, including one involving a brick-and-mortar rental store named Maxwell's, which rented videotapes to customers, along with private 4'x6' exhibition booths in the rear of the store. Similar to how Zediva operates, Maxwell's customers reserved a so-called "private exhibition" of these movies as the video stores' clerks queued up the videos from afar. A court later found this operation to be "not distinguishable in any significant manner from the exhibition of films at a conventional movie theater."
It was, in the court's opinion, a "public performance."
The MPAA is claiming maximum statutory damages in the amount of $150,000 per infringement for Zediva's alleged copyright violations.
Zediva hasn't yet issued a response to the movie industry's claims.

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Industry News: Firms Make Case for Full HD 3D Streaming...

January 18, 2011

Is 1080p 3D streaming on the way?

One of the key issues surrounding 3DTV is the limited amount of available content -- coupled with how to get this data-intensive content into the home.

Verizon, along with Panasonic, suggests the possibility of streaming Full HD (1080p) resolution 3D. The companies recently offered a technology demo, showing the ability to stream at 18Mbps using Verizon's FiOS service to a Panasonic Blu-ray player that handled the decoding.

Side by side with half-resolution 3D, there was a noticeable difference in image quality -- though it remains to be seen if half-res 3D, which requires less bandwidth, is good enough for most consumers.

Streaming, though not 1080p, has already been used to show live events, such as the 2010 Masters golf tournament. in 3D.

Verizon didn't have a timetable for availability of a 1080p 3D service. But as a 18Mbps pipe isn't available going into most American homes, services such as this will be limited, at least initially. The average connection speed to U.S. homes is 4.6 Mbps, according to an Akamai study released in October, though consumers with services such as FiOS have more bandwidth and would likely be early adopters of such 3D streaming services.

At this stage, more attention has been on 3D Blu-ray to get 3D to the home, as the storage and bit rate (up to 64Mbps) offered by the Blu-ray format would support Full HD 3D.

Cable/satellite services have been the other area where 3D has taken hold, as terrestrial broadcasters generally have their allocated spectrum tied up with HDTV, multicasting and/or mobile DTV services.

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