Possible end of online streaming?

The END of online sports could be near, this is NOT ********!!!!

FSuniverse and GoldenSkate are specified.

Well, further down, there is a warning about posting this in GS unless, possibly, maybe, it's in the Political section. I'll wait for the Admin's decision. Nice knowing y'all if I were banned!

Seems nobody believes this poster from the responses.





Mod Note: Some of the language on that discussion are not "family friendly" or work safe. Just FYI!

I sincerely doubt the end of Youtube-Google is too large, and it owns youtube.

However, it is possible that we will no longer be able to post streaming links here at GS.

We will have to keep an eye on this bill, because while the source is not entirely credible, the bill does exist.

But there will still be streaming, right? The links just have to be made known through underground network, aka PM or Group Messages. But, we need to fight this.

Already, I don't know if it's an irony that I watched Skate America from Canada via Europe, or I really should celebrate the fact.

SkateFiguring said:

But there will still be streaming, right? The links just have to be made known through underground network, aka PM or Group Messages. But, we need to fight this.

Already, I don't know if it's an irony that I watched Skate America from Canada via Europe, or I really should celebrate the fact.

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You can't seriously be prepared to believe an anonymous internet poster that live streaming is about to end, especially when the following entities are streaming live events:

Eurosport: Giant European Sports TV network has living streaming of their figure skating program;
CBC: Television network financially supported by the Canadian taxpayers through government subsidies, currently streams live
IceNetwork: owned by the USFSA, yeah that one will be shut down
SkateBuzz: owned by Skate Canada, see Ice-Network above
Russian TV website: another very legitimate source of live streaming.

None of these entities have anything to do with iCraveTV or any another website which accesses signals.

I think the issue is not about if there would be live streaming though the headline is misleading, alarming, and perhaps ethnocentric. It's about an US bill that might prohibit forums like GS and FSU from linking them.

We are among the fastest information providers of figure skating live streams and videos. I remember finding out the Chinese blog site with the first and probably the only downloadable videos from Japanese TV broadcast of the JO, and within a couple of hours, it was all over the cyber figure skating world. Just one Western source from one Chinese source. What if I wasn't allowed to post that link? It wasn't a live stream but the idea is similar. We shouldn't be silenced.

(I don't know why no Japanese fans put up the JO videos, contrary to their usual and very prompt practice. But that's whole 'nother story.)

GS is famous enough to have a bill pointed at it?

I wonder who the skating-fan legislator is. Or is this how the USFSA spends its money (lobbying to prevent people from seeing any but their vids)?

Spun Silver said:

GS is famous enough to have a bill pointed at it?

I wonder who the skating-fan legislator is. Or is this how the USFSA spends its money (lobbying to prevent people from seeing any but their vids)?

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What kind of "skating fan" would propose legislation like this?
Don't mean to be rude, just genuinely curious.
??

I assume the legislation is targeted at websites that pirate copyrighted material and those who, even inadvertently, link to the pirated material. I'm a part time author and live with a full time author/illustrator, so I have sympathy with the producers and owners of copyrighted material. And given fs financial wows it is good if people are making money on it, with some of the proceeds making it back to the ISU, country federations, and ultimately skaters.

I don't have cable or satellite tv - just broadcast TV and the best dsl internet link available to me - which is the slowest available. I bought a subscription to IN this year - and was glad to think part of the $ would got to the USFSA. But the coverage is almost unwatchable to me. Taped I have to pause every few minutes and still only so so - live is much to choppy to watch. I ended up watching the ladies LP on a pirated eurosport stream. Not the best quality, but at least it was there - the only possible way I could watch this, and was grateful for it. It was a link I found on a message board. I assume this legislation would make it hard to have the stream exist, and for me to find it.

Seems to me that this legislation is ahead of the technology - though they might say the opposite. The infrastructure of broadband internet access is still underdeveloped, and before they start shutting down channels of information, I hope they make sure that all can easily, affordably, and legally access the depth and breadth the internet has to offer.

That would be my understanding.

For example, when there is an event, and there is streaming video, unless you're paying to see the video, or unless it's from the rink, or under the auspices of a federation or country, chances are, it's a pirate stream. Justin TV regularly has pirate video from Eurosport, for example, and from time to time, Eurosport has really cracked down on people on youtube.


A lot of the tech needed exists within google - it has the recognition software to match a copyrighted video or audio stream, and the web crawler tech needed to find it. I can envision a business model where, say, Eurosport, pays Google to shut down people pirating its content.

As if Google weren't rich enough already, but there it is.

also - they wouldn't "just" shut FSU and/or GoldenSkate down, they'd sue and prosecute the admins (and probably mods) to the point of bankruptcy - even if it's thru PMs... so, yeah, it's something worth keeping a MAJOR eye on.

I think they would probably limit civil suits to groups that actually have the ability to pay, unlike GS and FSU, because once a site is shut down, the owner probably has little ability to pay damages. They might make an example of somebody, but there would be an early offer to settle. If that should happen, the site owner should take the offer.

That's how it worked in random people who were downloading music from pirate sites. If they pushed it to suit, the results were not pretty.