Comments on: Hulu pulls content off Boxee

Just after removing its content from CBS' TV.com, now Hulu does the same with Boxee, saying that its following requests from content partners.

[getwired]

Sigh. Just like the music industry before them, the video content industry is proving their naivete at handling the Internet as a content syndication mechanism. Stupid move. Not Hulu's choice. But stupid move.

[karpenterskids]

My thoughts exactly.

[alchemistmuffin]

Have a feeling this is all behind the fact that Boxee can be used with Apple TV, and I think Apple complained that this is taking iTunes revenue away.

[harrisonh1]

I think that if Apple was this concerned with Boxee, they would have taken steps to prevent its installation on the Apple TV prior to or instead of secretly lobbying major media corporations to have them pull their content.

[mwsmith824]

If their content partners want a war, they should seriously look at the music industry. If people want their content, they'll get it. If they want it in another format or outlet, they'll get it. If you don't give it to them in a way you can make money, they'll take it. You don't want us to watch your ads on Hulu, no problem. They won't watch your ads. They will however still take the content. Don't doubt that for a second.

[Eludium-Q36]

Exactly! Stupid is as stupid does, even the military embraces the "lessons learned" concept!

[rmludwig]

I thought Hulu was run by aliens who ruled the world. So, why do they care what the content providers say? Just scoop the brains of those content providers out with those mellon ballers and git on with bizness.

[Dalkorian]

You missed the connection - it's the content providers who are the evil aliens!

Long live The Pirate Bay! Aaaarrrgh!

[brazilian_sf]

I don't understand why this would be a problem. Their content already has ads in it, so what's the harm if it can be watched using your Mac on your TV, rather than watched in your computer's website? It's not as if Boxee was blocking any of those ad revenues.

[mwsmith824]

My guess would be that people watching say It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia on tv are watching ads they make alot more money from then the ads that are shown for the same show on Hulu. So if people are getting the same experience watching it on their big screen tv via Hulu, their advertisers could get cranky.

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.

[ddhboy]

I suspect its more to do with fear of Hulu on your TV effecting the ratings of the show's regular broadcast rather than any sort of ad problem with the site itself.

[heavydevelopment]

This stinks. I'm going to boycott hulu. I have a hard enough time watching the content on my DVR anyways--LOL. But if I do want to watch an old episode.....THE pirate bay here I come.

NBC/GE--bad multinational conglomerate. No cookie for you.

[karpenterskids]

It's not Hulu's fault.

Did you read the article at all?

[tm_anon]

Nope, it's not Hulu's fault, it's the people who apparently are in charge of Hulu who are at fault and so, yes, boycotting Hulu is a good response. Until I know exactly which content partners are the origin, I won't watch anything from the site. I already don't turn on my television, not watching any content on Hulu either won't take much more effort than that.

[p.shearer]

Most people when faced with the choice of hunting down a bit torrents or double-clicking a link on hulu will put up with the four or five commercials per episode just for the convenience factor. Making Hulu less accessible will only serve to increase the amount of piracy out there. Maybe their actuaries know something I don't but it sure doesn't seem like a smart move to me.

I use Playon by mediamall to watch Hulu on my XBOX 360 and Dlink DSM-520. Works greats!

[ddhboy]

I think the reason why it was pulled was the fear of the traditional market, where the bread and butter for tv networks is, would be threatened by hulu on demand playback and what it could do to their ratings. Hulu is still soaring in page views while the actual TV ratings are plummeting, and while the networks are safer with services like Netflix where they're going to be getting licensing revenue, Hulu is run fully by single view advertising, which doesn't pull in nearly the amount of revenue that a single commercial break would get on regular TV, and ironically enough many people are finding services like Hulu to be reasonable replacements for regular television, there have even been news reports of people cutting their cable subscriptions in favor of online streams.

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.

[ppartekim]

So now instead of buying a Apple TV, I will buy a mac mini and still get what I want they way I want it or I will download and push it to my Tivos to watch still getting what I want.

[markusfarkus]

That's exactly what I did.

[mpitogo]

Dood what a shame. I wasn't a big fan of Hulu and then I got a MacMini and an HDTV tuner/DVR. WIth boxee it completed the package. I accessed all the online content with just a remote. Not going to watch Hulu from a browser, what a joke.

[DrtyDogg]

There is a script for XBMC that will allow you to watch Hulu shows on it.

[unknown unknown]

Just more proof these content owners are idiots and control freaks. You'd think they didn't want people to watch their stuff.

[Thomas, David]

Question ... wasn't Hulu founded on the joint ventures of those same content providers!? So them attempting to redirect the blame, and provide not reasons ... rather disingenuous?

[bj1126]

Yes and no. There's evil corporation hive mind. The people at Hulu being as tech and internet savvy as they I'm sure realize the position they are being put in and have argued vigorously against it.

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.

[Dalkorian]

bj, do you have any idea how idiotic that sounds? Beat the monster by feeding it? Take a step back and realize what's going on here, hulu was invented by Nothing But Commercials and Faux News to try to take Youtube down. It's been nothing but commercials and control of what you do since it's inception, so why would news like this surprise anyone? Why complain, you have a choice. You can either bend over and take your raping by the content providers so they can have yet another ivory back scratcher while you jump through hoop after hoop for a moment's of entertainment laced with hours of commercials like a good little slave, or you can liberate yourself through TPB.

Screw these fat cat nazi's and long live TPB! Aaarrrgh!

[camrow]

What is it about big content providers that gives them this Darwinian urge to become irrelevant. You're drinking the RIAA Kool-Aid guys. I was willing to watch commercials on Boxee. I'm certainly not doing that if I DVR your crap.

[gopnick]

This is ludicrous. Now all those Boxee users will just go get the torrents, download the files, and watch these programs with no advertising. Brilliant move on the part of the content providers... ::rolls eyes::

[Stormspace]

If Boxee had been a hack they would probably have been fine. The fact that they had a deal with Hulu to share content probably irked the content owners since Boxee was providing an all in one service that displayed the content without the content owners getting a cut. It'll probably shake out with each larger network having it's own distribution mechanism, while smaller networks are forced to join together into something like Hulu.

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.

[zcollvee]

why?

[Dalkorian]

Why does anyone commit rape? Pure unadulterated selfish greed, nothing more and nothing less. Bend over and take your raping like a good slave or liberate yourself through TPB. Your choice.

[GlennAllen]

"Hulu dumps Boxee"?

I'm "dumping" Hulu (and any of these "content providers" I can identify).

[Reid Sorenson]

This is just stupid. Boxee, from the content provider's perspective, is nothing more than an alternative web browser. What's next, artificially blocking Safari and Firefox? There is no valid business reason to do this. It's simply the act of executives who don't understand the medium they're playing in. And, frankly, in 2009 that should be unacceptable of any media executive.

[B-Ri]

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.

[libertyforall1776]

Why remove it? There is no point. Did they threaten them legally? What a joke, Boxee SHOULD have Hulu integrated! Hulu needs to get a clue.