House Committee Takes on Live-streaming Piracy [NewTeeVee]
Do the broadcasting and cable content producers who have rights to televise sporting events have some legal recourse when a fan in the stands uses a mobile device to stream video of the sporting event out live over the Internet? That's one of the questions the U.S. House Judiciary Committee is contemplating today in a hearing entitled "Piracy of Live Sports Broadcasting Over the Internet." With the advent of mobile phones that can record video while simultaneously uploading that video to a live streaming web site, each fan at a sporting event has the potential to create their own broadcast of the event. Companies that have paid millions for the right to broadcast the event - either via traditional television or online - are understandably concerned that these freelance broadcasts are undercutting their own.
The reason this has risen to the level of a congressional hearing is the question whether or not current copyright law protects the rights holders to these and other live events. Live streaming sites maintain that there is a technical fix that can solve the problem - working with content producers to use video fingerprinting to identify and remove infringing live content. The hearing is likely to focus on the effectiveness of the technical fix and whether copyright laws ought to be amended to counter this new technology.
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