Whoops! Hulu Removed (Again) from Boxee [NewTeeVee]
It was a back-and-forth battle between Hulu, the popular long-form video streaming site, and Boxee, the open source streaming video browser. On Friday, the two companies engaged in a technological battle over whether Boxee users would have access to Hulu's video content. Last month, Boxee agreed to remove Hulu's content from its interface after Hulu requested the removal.
Hulu's video content includes popular programming from Fox and NBC Universal. On Friday, Boxee decided to exploit a loophole in their agreement with Hulu by allowing Boxee users to subscribe to RSS feeds of Hulu content, rather than the original interface. Hulu responded by blocking Boxee's access to RSS feeds. Anyone using the Boxee software was blocked from accessing Hulu content.
Boxee fired back later by engineering a workaround that allowed its users access to the Hulu RSS feeds, and based on blog reports, Hulu hasn't yet re-blocked Hulu. It's still unclear what these mechantions mean for the future of streamed long-form video to the television screen, but I expect that the programmers supplying Hulu will want to have the last word in this scrap.
This is yet another in-your-face battle in the war about copyright owners' protections in the 21st Century. Let's hope we get it sorted out in the forseeable future so copyright holders can be fairly compensated for their creations and end users can have unfettered (even if not free) access to them.
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