The BBC iPlayer is about to undergo another metamorphosis, its second since inception. The BBC iPlayer 3.0 is going to have social network integration at its core, and the ability to share what you’re watching or listening to could have a dramatic effect on viewing figures.

The BBC iPlayer

The BBC iPlayer has grown in both usability and popularity since its launch over two years ago. It’s now a must-use service for all residents in the U.K. and those outside of the U.K. who have found a way to circumvent the geo-blocking.

The man now overseeing the iPlayer as part of his job as the BBC’s director of Future Media and Technology is Erik Huggers. And he recently spoke to The Telegraph about the future of the iPlayer at the Changing Media Summit 2010.

Continue Reading…

The 2010 Academy Awards are being held tonight, and Avatar and The Hurt Locker are the front-runners for the coveted ‘Best Picture’ Oscar. But both are beaten by District 9, at least if the number of downloaded torrents is the deciding factor.

Movie Piracy

Movie piracy has been with us for decades. The advent of home video made piracy a huge problem for Hollywood, and DVD and Blu-ray have continued that trend. But it’s the Internet that truly made piracy mainstream and something everyone does.

That is if you believe sharing media files on the Internet is piracy, of course. The law says it is, naturally.

File-sharing sites are probably more numerous now than ever before, with both well-known and underground options available to anyone who wants to acquire a media file – be it movie, TV show, game, computer program, or whatever – for free online.

Continue Reading…

Hulu is losing all Comedy Central content, which includes the immensely popular The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. What’s more, Viacom is warning it may sue anyone uploading or embedding unauthorized clips on their sites. I smell trouble ahead.

Hulu Loses Big Names

Two of the most popular shows on Hulu are The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Unfortunately, neither will be available to watch on Hulu after March 9 as Viacom has decided in its infinite wisdom to pull all Comedy Central content from the site.

This is a big deal when you consider The Daily Show is only behind Lost and Family Guy in terms of the number of viewers it gains on Hulu. So if even those kinds of viewing figures aren’t making it worth Viacom’s while what about the less popular shows?

Continue Reading…

The Italian legal system today faces charges of being an absolute joke. Not only were Google executives brought to trial over a UGC video that had nothing directly to do with them, they’ve now been convicted of breaking Italian privacy laws. Absolute bunkum.

Google Video Upload

In 2006, before Google acquired YouTube, a short video appeared on the now-defunct Google Video showing a disabled teenager being bullied by a group of his peers. One of the teenagers had uploaded the video, which remained on the site for a couple of months until complaints were received.

At that point, Google removed the video as fast as it could, and helped the Italian police track down the people responsible. The female uploader and several of her classmates were sentenced to 10 months community service.

That surely should have been the end of this sorry story, but it wasn’t.

Continue Reading…

YouTube looks to be expanding its video rental service despite only mild success with the experiment with Sundance film festival offerings earlier this year. And it isn’t just films being offered for paid streaming, with anime, travel, craft, and fitness videos added to the mix.

YouTube Video Rentals

YouTube signaled its intent to start charging for some videos last September, with rumors of a movie rental service priced at $3.99-a-film emerging.

The trail then went cold until January of this year when YouTube officially released the first five offerings under the new service. Until then, the service had merely been trialled by Google employees.

Continue Reading…

The results of two recent court cases in the U.K. suggest that linking to but not hosting copyrighted content isn’t illegal, at least in Europe. Both TV-Links and the music-oriented OiNK have been cleared in the last month of the charges brought against them.

Linking Vs. Hosting

Hosting copyrighted content is illegal. That is an accepted part of the legal system. However, things get a little murkier and confused when a site is acting as a third-party, a go-between matching those hosting the content and those seeking it.

This has been tested in court a number of times, and the results have been mixed to say the least. In the U.S. it would appear linking is illegal, and sites such as Google only get away with it because of their Web directory nature, and even they have to remove links if asked to.

However, in the U.K., and potentially all countries in the European Union, linking to copyrighted material is not illegal.

Continue Reading…

There was a flurry of excitement a few weeks ago when Apple unveiled the iPad, its latest foray into consumer electronics. And it’s one that could conceivably have a very big impact on Web video. And it seems both Hulu and the TV networks are realizing this.

Apple iPad

Apple’s head honcho Steve Jobs unveiled the long-anticipated iPad at the end of January. It’s a touchscreen tablet pitched somewhere between smartphones and notebook PCs. And it could change the way we consume digital media. Possibly.

Apple wants the iPad to become the device for media on the go. The screen makes it ideal for watching video, but there’s also gaming, e-books, and music which could be given a new lease of life from the iPad.

And it seems the content creators which Apple needs to partner with are coming round to the idea.

Continue Reading…