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House ponders how to keep video streaming from washing away copyright protections
Consumers eventually will be able to watch any TV station at any time over the Internet, most agree. The question, posed before Congress last week, is how to let the genie out of the bottle without putting content providers out of business.
While some suggestions were given to the House Telecommunications Subcommittee-such as developing technology that would limit the geographic reach of Internet broadcasts-for now the answer is protect companies' rights to control their content, let the marketplace work out distribution agreements and enforce laws that forbid Internet companies from streaming copyright content without permission.
A powerful coalition of media companies, broadcasters and sports leagues are up in arms over one tiny Internet company's attempt to stream TV signals on the Web. The site, iCraveTV.com, started streaming the signals of 17 TV stations in the Toronto market area, which includes Buffalo, N.Y., in early December. By the end of January, a Pennsylvania federal court had shut the Canada-based site down. A similar coalition of Canadian broadcasters and content providers hope to do the same in Canada.