{"id":433,"date":"2010-02-04T21:18:55","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T02:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/saoudrana.com\/?p=433"},"modified":"2010-02-04T21:19:37","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T02:19:37","slug":"congress-asks-nbc-why-hulu-blocked-boxee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saoudrana.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/congress-asks-nbc-why-hulu-blocked-boxee\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress Asks NBC Why Hulu Blocked Boxee"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Boxee and Hulu have had a contentious history, with Hulu several times blocking its content from working with the Boxee social media software. NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker once told All Things D<\/a> he didn\u2019t want Hulu content on Boxee because they were committed to keeping the former \u201can online experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today during the Congressional hearing to investigate Comcast\u2019s proposed acquisition of NBCU (you can watch the full length video of the hearing below), Representative Rick Boucher asked Zucker flat out about the company\u2019s exclusion of Boxee users from accessing Hulu content. Zucker\u2019s reponse:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a decision made by the Hulu management to, uh, what Boxee was doing was illegally taking the content that was on Hulu without any business deal. And, you know, all, all the, we have several distributors, actually many distributors of the Hulu content that we have legal distribution deals with so we don\u2019t preclude distribution deals. What we preclude are those who illegally take that content.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a blog post, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen responds<\/a> to Zucker\u2019s claims of illegal content access. He explains that the workaround that currently allows Boxee users to watch Hulu shows is to simply use a web browser for access. Just like Firefox or Chrome users can watch Hulu content, so can Boxee users: \u201cWe don\u2019t \u2018take\u2019 the video. We don\u2019t copy it. We don\u2019t put ads on top of it. The video and the ads play like they do on other browsers or on Hulu Desktop. And it certainly is legal to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Considering neither Mozilla nor Google (nor Microsoft or other browser makers) have distribution deals with Hulu, it\u2019s hard not to concede that Boxee has a valid point. What do you think: should Congress intervene to prevent a company like Hulu from blocking access to particular web TV companies, be it Boxee or otherwise?<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boxee and Hulu have had a contentious history, with Hulu several times blocking its content from working with the Boxee social media software. NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker once told All Things D he didn\u2019t want Hulu content on Boxee because they were committed to keeping the former \u201can online experience.\u201d Today during the Congressional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,364,1],"tags":[418,419,420,421,422,423,424,425,426,427,428,429,430,431],"class_list":["post-433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer","category-gadget","category-uncategorized","tag-avner-ronen","tag-avnerronen","tag-boxee","tag-comcast","tag-congress","tag-hulu","tag-jeff-zucker","tag-jeffzucker","tag-nbc","tag-rep-rick-boucher","tag-reprickboucher","tag-rick-boucher","tag-rickboucher","tag-zucker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saoudrana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saoudrana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saoudrana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saoudrana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saoudrana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/saoudrana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":436,"href":"https:\/\/saoudrana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions\/436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saoudrana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saoudrana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saoudrana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}