Hulu pulls content off Boxee
Fresh from removing content from TV.com, Hulu has now requested that Boxee, the maker of media-center software, stop making Hulu's videos available, according to a statement posted to Boxee's blog.
"Two weeks ago Hulu called and told us their content partners were asking them to remove Hulu from Boxee," Boxee said in the post. "We tried (many times) to plead the case for keeping Hulu on Boxee, but on Friday of this week, in good faith, we will be removing it. You can see their blog post about the issues they are facing."
Hulu, the video site formed by NBC Universal and News Corp., said in a note on its blog that the problem rests with their content partners.
"Our content providers requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product," Hulu wrote. "We are respecting their wishes."
Boxee CEO Avner Ronen told CNET News that he was disappointed by the decision and attempted to convince Hulu executives that Boxee was good for the video site and its content partners.
"I hope that they will realize the opportunity is greater than the threat," Ronen said
What exactly that threat is was unknown to Ronen and Hulu didn't spell out the reason its content partners were down on Boxee in its blog post.
Hulu's decision to leave TV.com, owned by CBS (parent company of CNET News), is unrelated to the decision to pull out of Boxee, said a source familiar with the negotiations. Hulu said that in the case of TV.com, it was a contractual issue. As for Boxee, Hulu was forced to honor the request of its content providers, the source said.
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
Long live The Pirate Bay! Aaaarrrgh!
Solution, watch it on the big screen tv without any ads, just not via Hulu. Their loss really, the convenience of Hulu made putting up with those brief ads tolerable. They took that away, so they just transfer that level of tolerable to the work involved with acquiring it without ads.
NBC/GE--bad multinational conglomerate. No cookie for you.
Did you read the article at all?
I use Playon by mediamall to watch Hulu on my XBOX 360 and Dlink DSM-520. Works greats!
Its a problem for the television industry that they will have to figure out a way to fix, because like it or not we are coming to expect that each network will operate like south park studios, where there is an entire catalog of tv series available for streaming whenever we want. Yes its greedy, but the reality of the situation is that if the networks don't offer this sort of things people will just end up running over to Pirate Bay or whatever and downloading full DVDs and watching it off that. It comes back to that whole "Atleast your drinking in my house" thing, it isn't a very good situation at all, but it is manageable.
I think the real way to get it changed is to patronize the Hulu sponsors and let them know why you are doing so. The more revenue Hulu can generate the more power they will have over how the content is distributed.
Screw these fat cat nazi's and long live TPB! Aaarrrgh!
It's also very possible that the Super Bowl ad was seen by some executives that had been living in a vacuum and it was a wake up call to them.
I'm "dumping" Hulu (and any of these "content providers" I can identify).
- by B-Ri February 20, 2009 11:54 AM PST
- This is sad, I've been enjoying Boxee for about a month. Though I have to admit I never actually watched anything from Hulu through it. I have watched some stuff from the Hulu site. The real problem though is that I am looking for the combined interface that boxee presents. I have a lot of media and to be able to seamlessly switch between my own content and stuff from Internet sites like Netflix and Hulu is great. If Hulu doesn't want to be part of the party then I guess they can take their ball and go home.
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