How Will Major Sports Events Respond to iPhone 3GS Video Uploads?

Here’s a question – what are the major sports leagues going to do about fans recording sporting events on their sleek new iPhone 3GS and then uploading it on the spot to YouTube (or another, less monitored website)?

It’s already happening.  YouTube claims that already half of the mobile uploads last week came from an iPhone 3GS and it comes in addition to fans often updating friends and followers on scores and major plays via Twitter or Facebook updates.

How will the leagues control this sort of fan interaction?  Will they try to ban anyone from shooting a picture or video with their phones?  How will they monitor for this?  What will they do when fans are caught?  And how to distinguish between video being taken for personal use and video being taken for a homemade version of SportsCenter you are your friends have just dreamed up.

This is just one of the many challenges facing those who would like to continue to control the flow of content.  This is a losing battle for the people currently (barely) in control.

NBC Streams US Open Online – Cable Co’s Should Be Scared

Please don’t tell my boss, but I currently have NBC’s live stream of the final round of the USGA Open playing in a corner of my monitor.  Not only is the picture clear and steady but I have quick access to every stat I could imagine.

This should scare the bejesus  out of the cable companies like Time Warner and Comcast.  If NBC can stream live coverage of a major sporting event right to my desktop (which could easily be plugged into my TV) I find myself asking, once again, what the hell do we all need a cable company for these days?

The cable company, much like the major record labels, are quickly becoming unnecessary middlemen who will fight tooth and nail to hold onto their increasingly untenable position due to the wealth created by standing between a provider and a viewer.

Live Baseball on Your iPhone

Taking one more small, but important, step towards offering customers what they want where they want it, the MLB is rolling out a new iPhone app that takes advantages in the 3.0 software update.  The new app will allow users to watch live streaming coverage of out-of-market baseball games right on their iPhone over either a 3G or WiFi connection.

This is certainly cool.  The one thing I miss since cutting my cable TV is coverage of the occasional live sporting event.  Slowly but surely, the major sports leagues are coming up with ways for viewers to enjoy events without commiting to expensive packages of programming, the majority of which you are not interested in seeing.

We are getting closer to the day when you can simply pick an event, pay a fair price, and enjoy the coverage on the screen of your choice.  What this will mean to the licensing deals that have been the life-blood of cable operators for years, is still to be determined.  One thing is certain, as distribution becomes less and less reliant on the cable companies, the cable companies are going to find themselves quickly dislodged from their current position as an unwelcome monopoly.

The MLB app will cost you $10, and as long as you don’t follow the local team, seems like a pretty good deal.

Music Tee Another Savvy New Media Music Model

While the major labels sue their way into oblivion, many smaller concerns are taking truly innovative and compelling approaches to monetizing music.

Today, via the enviable Josh Spear, I discovered Music Tees.  These are extremely cool looking t-shirts with a great graphic on the front and track listings for an album on the back. Oh, they also come with an added bonus:

The coolest part? The hang tag sports a unique code used to download the album which is a compilation mix of said musicians. LINK

Ok, so the t-shirt is $60 and that could put some people off but perhaps the combination of a great shirt and a killer album are worth the cost.

I will say that my good friend Waz is one of the featured artists, so that is damn cool.

Everyone Loses in NFL / DirectTV Deal

The NFL and DirectTV announced that they have signed a deal that will give DirectTV subscribers access to NFL games online.

This raises a few issues:

1) If this is an exclusive deal, that would mean that the only way NFL fans could ‘legally’ watch NFL games online is by subscribing to DirectTV, a service that doesn’t seem to work when it is raining.

2) This will only encourage the spread of illegal streams online – something already prevelant but not widespread.

3) If the NFL decides to provide legal streams online in a way that doesn’t require one to sign up for DirectTV, nobody will bother with DirectTV.

I remain baffled as to why CBS’s success with March Madness on Demand cannot be easily replicated by all the major sporting leagues.  More eyeballs means more ad dollars or am I missing something?

More on the deal here.

5 Way to Get Sued for Copyright Infringement

Let’s face it, innovations in digital technology combined with a lawsuit-happy culture and a deep missinterpretation of the purpose of copyright laws means that there are more ways than ever to open yourself up to potential lawsuits.

Here are just a few ways you might try yourself:

1) While at a major sporting event update your Facebook status with the score.  Now you’re a “broadcaster” without license.

2) Record yourself reading a children’s book and then play it for kids at a sleepover.  You never licensed the right to record and replay that story or for you to hold a public performance.

3) Write a blog post with links to sites where you can stream TV shows. Hey, you’re aiding and abetting in a crime!

4) Post a video of you watching TV but leave the sound from the TV on.  Even if you don’t show the TV itself this is a copyright violation.

5) Email your friend an mp3 of a new song you just bought.  Criminal!

This is just a short list, too.  As technology continues to evolve it will be necessary to either sue everyone with a pulse and a cell phone or rethink the reach and scope of current copyright laws.

Turner Sports Reads My Mind – NBA All-Star Game Just $.99

I have written in the past that I thought the networks and major sports leagues would be better off offering some sort of ala carte method of watching games online instead of the hefty “season pass” approach of subscribing to all the contant at once.

Turner seems to be taking a step in the right direction (via):

Turner Sports will provide live video coverage of this weekend’s NBA All-Star game online and via an iPhone app (streamable over 3G!). While the video will be live, it is not a webcast of the televised game, Turner still wants you to watch the action on oldteevee (along with all those ads). Instead, iPhone and web watchers will get four different camera angles.

Available today, the iPhone app is 99 cents; it will feature live streaming coverage of Saturday night’s skills competitions (dunks, 3-point shots, etc.) as well as Sunday’s All-Star game.

While this might not replace the experience of watching the game at home, at the lack of broadcasters is a mixed blessing, this is an exciting development and one that hints that TV will not long be the dominant platform for live sports.

In 2009, Big Media to Continue Losing to Pirates

Unless someone makes a very bold move, there is no reason to think that various forms of digital piracy will continue to grow in 2009.

This will be in the face of increased government scrutiny and bolder attempts by groups like RIAA to shut it all down.

Why?  Because the powers behind all big media continues to think that they can somehow beat back the digital tide and continue to make money with business models that have become obsolete.

Take this comment from a recent post on BusinessWeek:

The basic problem is that Hollywood is attempting to preserve an analog business model in a digital age. The result is a crazy quilt of availability in different media, in different geographies, and at different times. Our Man in Havana turns up now and then on cable channels, and the DVD has been available from Sony in Britain since 2005. But that disk is coded so it only works in European “Zone 2″ players, not in North America. All of this makes little sense in a world where digital copies, legal or otherwise, are freely available.

If you doubt that, just try Googling (GOOG) “unlocked DVD players” and see how easy it is to get around the geographic zone restrictions. Or simply download a copy of the movie using BitTorrent, as I did. I don’t want to condone piracy. Yet it’s hard to condemn—or resist—when there’s a commodity item out there on the market and the vendor, for no particular reason, neglects to make it available to buyers.

The major sports leagues are facing a similar challenge.  As a first-person example, last night I was at my girlfriend’s TV & cable-free apartment and wanted to see a bit of the NFL playoff game.  I went to Google and tried looking up “streaming NFL playoff.”  A got a whole slew of options, none of which were official options provided by the NFL.

What I found was a site with links to “pirate” streams of the game provided by fellow fans who had taken the TV signal, routed it through their computer via a TV-tuner card and then posted that signal to any number of streaming hosts (UStream was last night’s helpful friend).

Within about 60 seconds I was watching a sort of low-res but completely watchable live transmission of the game.  I was also forced to watch all the ads, so I’m not even sure how this hurts anyone… but the NFL considers this a huge problem.

Of course, the problem isn’t pirates, it’s that the NFL (and MLB, the NHL and the rest of them) have failed to provide a viable option of their own that fits the needs of many potential customers.

How about simply charging $.99 to watch a game online.  With the commercials, even.  I would pay that just to have a simple, high-res, on-demand stream of the game I want to see.

It isn’t that people are dying to use pirate-methods to get the content they desire.  They are just not willing to jump through endless hoops and be over-charged for that content.

As soon as big media wises up to this and decides to go back to treating customers as people they serve instead of people they sue they will put the pirates right out of business.

2009 – The Year of Bowling

Every year I like to make a few predictions about the year ahead.  The beauty of a blog is I can actually be on record in case any of these things comes true.

So, in that spirit, please let it be known that I believe 2009 will be the Year of Bowling.  I think we are going to see a large rise in the visibility of the sport and a major uptick in youth participation.

I think we will see at least one major TV show that is centered around bowling.  In fact, I would not be surprised if we see both a bowling reality show and a scripted sitcom set, at least in part, at a bowling alley (yes, I remember “Ed” but that was really not about bowling at all).

There you have it, folks.  If anyone is interested in help creating any of these shows, please drop me a line. I’ve got a bunch of ideas…

UK’s Nation Sport Theatened by Justin.TV? I Think Not.

Image via Wikipedia
(ps – I am pretty sure this is an “unlicensed” use of their logo…)

TechDirt has some thoughts on a GuardianUK article that questions whether people “illegally” streaming local broadcasts of soccer matches over services like Justin.TV is a threat to the financial well-being of the sport since it could impact the licensing fees networks currently pay for the exclusive broadcast rights.

However, as TechDirt so eloquently points out, the piracy only exists because of a big demand that the true rights-holder is failing to meet.  It isn’t that people are unwilling to watch legally sanctioned broadcasts of their favorite team but, unless they happen to live in a very small geographic area, they simply can’t under current conditions.  Thus, they seek out other ways to watch the match.  Are they doing this to hurt the sport?  Of course not!  Their willingness to go so far just to watch is direct proof of a deep love and need.

Not ones to just complain, TechDirt adds:

“Here’s a novel idea: instead of trying to crack down on the likes of Justin.tv, why not require rightsholders to offer free streams of games as parts of their deals? Then, the Premier League and its broadcast partners get to serve this demand, instead of Justin.tv or Chinese P2P services, and get to capitalize on it through advertising or other means. It might have some effect on pay services by giving fans with the least willingness to pay a free service to use, but again, I’d argue that most people would still prefer to watch their teams’ games on a bigger screen and in higher quality enough to pay for it. And the additional fans the services would reach could make new converts to paid services as well.”

From their lips…