[mossy2103]

Originally Posted by GonzoTheGreat

LOL, cease and desists would have been sent out the minute this service launched if the broadcasters viewed it as illegal - the host and owner will have chosen to ignore them if they thought they had a legal case.

But people have said that this is a grey area, that the legality is unknown. Therefore it is not unreasonable that the legal people have been looking closely at what the site is doing and what laws might or might not be applicable before being able to say with any degree of clarity that the site is, or is not, legal (in their view).

The media has up to the minute access to court records, which are more frequent than the daily ones. However any case going on would have been listed prior and is available for anyone to see. The only thing that could happen this quickly unannounced would have been for a solicitor to have got a TEMPORARY injunction from a judge in the high court and again, this ruling would be published publicly soon after - so although possible, i see that as very unlikely for a site that has been running for months. It would have happened a long time ago. I think before now a broadcaster will have attempted to shut the site down but there is obviously something legally cloudy which means they need to sue them rather than able to just get an injunction for them to cease & desist.

So, at this point in the day, there is no way to say that no court ruling has or has not been obtained (other than from any verifiable news reports)?

My guess is that they just simply cannot pay the bills or perhaps the host has got cold feet from a normal C&D but that does not mean the owner cannot just do it elsewhere.

It is quite possible, but I don't think that the owner will be able to simply hide from this for long (my personal opinion, not based on any applicable law). Yes, he has probably either got cold feet, or is reeling from the unexpected popularity of the site. Which could then suggest that, if the site increases in popularity, then his business plan (based on many files sitting on a server or server farm hosted or colocated) is not sustainable in the longer term. Which is one reason why P2P technologies are popular - the bandwidth is offloaded to and shared by the end-users (thus greatly reducing bandwidth costs and required server powers)

[sgt.cryer]

Bollocks

I hope its just a temporary glitch

It says on the site Website has been terminated, so doesn't that mean it has been killed? Eg Stopped

[rachel047]

Just remembered that a while ago on the forums one of the sites owners/moderators mentioned they were looking to change Internet Service Providers or buy more bandwidth so they could add more channels to the service. Could that be anything to do with the site going down?

[Zazou]

Crap! This was a useful site, more so due to the flakey nature of my satellite signal recently.

[sgt.cryer]

Having jut looked at this site, is there anything you n actually downloadon there as the list of disallowed programmes is quite extensive!

And, whats the significance of the 2 epiodes you cant upload of corrie on there??

[technoguy]

Originally Posted by Trix71

I was catching up on Neighbours... And after finishing one episode i got this...

http://www.tvcatchup.com/

Looks like the plug has been pulled...

Glad its finally been taken down. Now I hope the BBC and ITV take the little weasel criminal who ran it to court and take him for every penny hes got. Ideally i'd like to see him serve some jail time, its about time the government clamped down on this type of theft.

It is a shame people did not get the chance to view the recordings of soap repeats, before it got shut down though.

[GonzoTheGreat]

Originally Posted by mossy2103

But people have said that this is a grey area, that the legality is unknown. Therefore it is not unreasonable that the legal people have been looking closely at what the site is doing and what laws might or might not be applicable before being able to say with any degree of clarity

From my experience it doesn't take a lot for media lawyers to take a chance and just try to get them to shut down with much evidence at all early on, but yes what you say is possible. I would think it highly unlikely that a TV company has today gone to the high court to get an emergency injunction but its possible - so unlikely though, since it isn't really an emergency and its been so long. I think if this was a legal thing we'd have heard about it.

I am way more of the opinion that either the owner has fallen out with the host, and possibly not paid the bills, done a runner etc - or the host has just re-considered their decision to let the site run based on threats from broadcasters or the raised profile of the whole project.

[skp20040]

Originally Posted by rachel047

Just remembered that a while ago on the forums one of the sites owners/moderators mentioned they were looking to change Internet Service Providers or buy more bandwidth so they could add more channels to the service. Could that be anything to do with the site going down?

I wonder, previous sites where people watched programmes etc , when closed would have a message explaining the closure. This seems to be more of a terms of service message , so either the TV channels have only been able to get at TV catch Up via their website terms of service , or TV Catch Up are in breach of their website terms and it has nothing to do with the TV channels . So not necessarily a permanent closure at this point.

Originally Posted by technoguy

Glad its finally been taken down. Now I hope the BBC and ITV take the little weasel criminal who ran it to court and take him for every penny hes got. Ideally i'd like to see him serve some jail time, its about time the government clamped down on this type of theft.

What is so terrible about people being able to watch proghrammes they have already paid for via the licence fee and by buying products that pay via advertising for the commercial channels ?

And why if the main broadcasters are so worried do they not provide a similar service to what are in effect their paying clients instead of the limited ones on offer at present ?

[carl.waring]

Originally Posted by skp20040

What is so terrible about people being able to watch proghrammes they have already paid for via the licence fee and by buying products that pay via advertising for the commercial channels ?

The licence pays for you to legally receive TV broadcasts. That's it. Anything else (DVD, etc.) you have to pay again for,

Originally Posted by skp20040

And why if the main broadcasters are so worried do they not provide a similar service to what are in effect their paying clients instead of the limited ones on offer at present ?

Because the rights to offer all the programmes would be un-economical and the LF would have to rise well above £135.

[skp20040]

Originally Posted by carl.waring

Because the rights to offer all the programmes would be un-economical and the LF would have to rise well above £135.

Not if it was on a website that accepted advertising, and if that content was placed there by BBC Worldwide as opposed to the BBC . There is nothing that prevents BBC Worldwide accepting advertising , its only the BBC who cannot do that on their channels. In fact BBC Worldwide may even make some more money for the BBC that way, they do in all their other commercial ventures, and after all money is what this is all about at the end of the day, the big boys dont want anyone else making what they want themselves.

[The1andonly]

Originally Posted by skp20040

Not if it was on a website that accepted advertising, and if that content was placed there by BBC Worldwide as opposed to the BBC . There is nothing that prevents BBC Worldwide accepting advertising , its only the BBC who cannot do that on their channels. In fact BBC Worldwide may even make some more money for the BBC that way, they do in all their other commercial ventures, and after all money is what this is all about at the end of the day.

Assuming the advertising would make up lost sales in DVDs etc..., otherwise it wouldn't make enough to pay off rights holders for their lost sales.

Anyway the BBC's planned involvement in "Kangaroo" seems similar.

the big boys dont want anyone else making what they want themselves.

Mean "Big Boys" trying to stop other people competing with them by stealing their content. I'm sure if I set up a service where by I steal from Tesco then use advertising so I can give the groceries away free (and still hopefully make a profit), they wouldn't stop me as they'd appreciate how my service would be better for consumers.

(Not that I'm saying it was definitely illegal, but the countering the point that even if it was the broadcasters should let them get away with it).

[SANDGATIAN]

Originally Posted by skp20040

..What is so terrible about people being able to watch proghrammes they have already paid for via the licence fee and by buying products that pay via advertising for the commercial channels ?

Its all to do with performance and repeat rights and if someone else decides to repeat them then they should also have to pay, it seems that site was not which in effect is piracy.

[googleking]

It's just looks like their co-location provider (where their servers are hosted) has got scared, Netrino are obviously a small company, possibly just a one-man-band judging from their website, so probably got frightened by a letter from some solicitor.

I should think they'll be back in a few days or at least have a message up saying when they will be back.

[skp20040]

Originally Posted by SANDGATIAN

Its all to do with performance and repeat rights and if someone else decides to repeat them then they should also have to pay, it seems that site was not which in effect is piracy.

As it is supposed to be a personal pvr service only available by signing up, would it make any difference if each recorded show was only available to view once by each member and then deleted from their library ? After all we have PVR's at home and can view a show to infinity .

[SANDGATIAN]

Originally Posted by skp20040

As it is supposed to be a personal pvr service only available by signing up, would it make any difference if each recorded show was only available to view once by each member and then deleted from their library ? After all we have PVR's at home and can view a show to infinity .

Yes you can record broadcast ITV, BBC etc for you own use but not share it with other households etc, the site is technically doing the opposite and sharing what they've recorded.

[mossy2103]

Originally Posted by GonzoTheGreat

I am way more of the opinion that either the owner has fallen out with the host, and possibly not paid the bills, done a runner etc -

Maybe because the business model was just not that profitable (especially when any additional bandwidth costs were raised)

or the host has just re-considered their decision to let the site run based on threats from broadcasters or the raised profile of the whole project.

That is a firm possibility, especially as it was a UK ISP.

[mossy2103]

Originally Posted by skp20040

I wonder, previous sites where people watched programmes etc , when closed would have a message explaining the closure.

Yes, any message would be composed by te site ownser, and would be the main index page for the website.

This seems to be more of a terms of service message , so either the TV channels have only been able to get at TV catch Up via their website terms of service , or TV Catch Up are in breach of their website terms and it has nothing to do with the TV channels .

Yes, it is an ISP message.

What is so terrible about people being able to watch proghrammes they have already paid for via the licence fee and by buying products that pay via advertising for the commercial channels ?

Rights issues (the artists, actors etc will not have any fees paid to them for repeat viewings/sales etc (which would normally be the case), thus depriving them of an income that they would otherwise have received. Plus the problem of illegal distribution:

a) By way of copying and passing on the content (via various routes) - all down to lack of DRM

b) By way of a non-UK resident being able to bypass the condition that you need to be UK-resident and be covered by a TV licence (by using UK-based proxy servers, bugmenot and other ways, there have been posts on other forums regarding non-UK residents, who have never paid for a UK tv licence, accessing the content quite successfully).

[KennyT]

Originally Posted by skp20040

Not if it was on a website that accepted advertising, and if that content was placed there by BBC Worldwide as opposed to the BBC . There is nothing that prevents BBC Worldwide accepting advertising , its only the BBC who cannot do that on their channels. In fact BBC Worldwide may even make some more money for the BBC that way, they do in all their other commercial ventures, and after all money is what this is all about at the end of the day, the big boys dont want anyone else making what they want themselves.

Assuming that one of the main broadcasters did the complaining, it could have just as easily been one of the commercial companies rather than the BBC. After all, despite including the adverts in the recorded stream, a viewer using TVC would damage, for example, c4s interests in a number of ways:

1 Users can skip over the ads (OK, same as a personal PVR)
2 Users encouraged not to watch programme live so audience figures fall, reducing c4s income (OK, same as personal PVR)
3 User ends up watching TVCs ads shown at the side of the screen instead (Aah - not OK, encourages advertisers to spend their money on TVC instead of c4)

Put the three together and TVCs service, as it became more successful, would increasingly directly affect c4's business...

K

[Rainbow91]

I imagine it will be back, there's too much demand demand for someone not to give it a go.

[Jodie2]

I cant believe it has been taken down. I looked this morning and I was so disappointed. I hope it comes back because it was ace

[Rainbow91]

Even if it is gone forever, now that it's been done someone else will try it. TV is free in most places around the world, someone doing this from the US could make massive amounts of money. So the idea will live on, and if it is illegal I'm sure it will one day gain the legality of iTunes or Napster.

[skp20040]

I see there is a different message this morning, hosted by the original company TVCatchup was with Godaddy.


http://www.tvcatchup.com/

[Jellied Eel]

Originally Posted by mossy2103

Rights issues (the artists, actors etc will not have any fees paid to them for repeat viewings/sales etc (which would normally be the case), thus depriving them of an income that they would otherwise have received. Plus the problem of illegal distribution:

You mean they don't get paid to be in those shows?

The comments re theft & loss of income are amusing, if you assume the site was a more 'legal' remote PVR.

The content is broadcast 'free to air' & you have a legal right to make personal recordings of it.. So there'd appear to be reduced scope for claiming 'theft' there.

That's also the challenge the 'FTA' broadcasters will need to overcome to monetise their 'rights'.

Course the problem was more with the sharing, which IMHO went against the spirit, if not letter of the law by making it too easy to share with people you don't know.

Still, shame the legalities didn't get properly tested..

I'd been wondering if one of the takedown attempts would be something more boring, like simple trademark infringement for using the broadcaster's logos without permission.