RTE 'reviewing' Magnet WebTV

Freddie59

from enn.net:

http://www.electricnews.net/story/show/10126067

The Irish Times reports that RTE is "reviewing" the legality of broadband provider Magnet's WebTV service, which allows access to all Irish terrestrial channels via the internet without the need for a TV licence. While the numbers watching Magnet's live streams remain small -- just 600 users have been watching daily since the service was launched at the end of January -- the service now has more than 10,000 registered users and if it continues to grow, it will negatively impact on RTE's revenues from licence fees.

"The regulatory and legal framework around it is complex. We are currently reviewing it," said an RTE spokeswoman. Magnet insists there is nothing complex about its new service and says it is entirely legal.

icdg

It can't be legal. At the time it was launched I presumed they had the premission of the broadcasters to do it (hence the geoblocking). Now its clear that they didn't even ask RTÉ.

If this is legal, it surely makes it legal to rebroadcast RTÉ without premission within the Republic of Ireland. This could not have been the intention of the legislature...

Given Magnet's stance, it could be a High Court judge that decides this one, though I doubt it will go that far.

watty

You need copyright holder's permission even for really crappy web tv rebroadcast. Magnet do have permission for their Fibre based "Cable TV like IPTV system", but it's customers only and you need a TV licence for it.

Real IPTV viewing needs a TV licence and permission (or even payments to) just like Satellite, Cable TV and Terrestrial. Does that give authority to run a crap quality Public Web-TV service? Answer is no, if the rights holders giving you content for the IPTV say no.

No-one anywhere in the World can rebroadcast any FTA TV without permission.

Some channels are "Free to Carry". But you still need written permission from the "Rights holder" or "Original Broadcaster" for EXACTLY what you are doing.

This could be fun to watch if Magnet Entertainment (the paying TV customers) get content rights revoked.

Even UPC, even for "Must Carry content" has to agree terms in Writing.

Freddie59

I was involved in a thread recently about convergence, and lines being blurred. Et voila - here you have it.

No longer is the debate about whether something is a TV or not; rather whether it is a TV signal or not. It's gonna be interesting!:D

But really, does it not cause a debate about RTE itself? A few years ago a comparison was made between RTE and BBC Wales, both operating similar amounts of services. BBCW had 800 employed. RTE had 3200 employed.
Says it all really.

Something needs to be done - and soon. According to the head of TV3 on The Last Word recently, RTE lost €60m last year. That is truly staggering. If it were a private company it would collapse.

It's time they were given a choice: the licence fee - or advertising. Not both.

icdg

Freddie59 wrote: »

But really, does it not cause a debate about RTE itself? A few years ago a comparison was made between RTE and BBC Wales, both operating similar amounts of services. BBCW had 800 employed. RTE had 3200 employed.
Says it all really.
[/B]

The two are not comparable. But this is a thread on Magnet not RTÉ, so I won't respond here.

rlogue

Maybe a good spoiler on RTE's part would be to offer their own geoblocked live streaming service of the full channels and offer rights cleared programming worldwide too.

They could even stream RTE International then!

watty

They should be streaming RTE International

STB

Freddie59 wrote: »

I was involved in a thread recently about convergence, and lines being blurred. Et voila - here you have it.

No longer is the debate about whether something is a TV or not; rather whether it is a TV signal or not. It's gonna be interesting!:D

Yes Freddie and you were wrong then too. Believe it or not people watch this thing at home, its called a television. A little web company who apparently lifted RTE's content and rebroadcast it on the web in crap quality is meant to signal something ??? You truly are nuts if you think IPTV will be in anyway mainstreamly competitive with terrerstrial OR satellite here in the next 10 years.

By the way the legislation is VERY clear about what requires a TV licence. And the legislation is also very clear about allowing and disallowing as the Minister sees fit. Expect to see the plug pulled.

Freddie59 wrote: »

But really, does it not cause a debate about RTE itself? A few years ago a comparison was made between RTE and BBC Wales, both operating similar amounts of services. BBCW had 800 employed. RTE had 3200 employed.
Says it all really.

Well done. Nice comparison. Hope you dont actually work in the TV game.

Freddie59 wrote: »

Something needs to be done - and soon. According to the head of TV3 on The Last Word recently, RTE lost €60m last year. That is truly staggering. If it were a private company it would collapse.

It's time they were given a choice: the licence fee - or advertising. Not both.

Shock horror TV3 have side swipe at RTE. The simple truth is that ALL broadcsters whether radio or TV, whether indpendent or PSB ALL had something in common - they lost advertising DUE to the downturn in the economy. Did TV3 happen to mention their present financial situation ? Some might say that would make for interesting reading.

Successive governments have agreed on one simple fact.

RTE cannot be funded on TV licence fee monies alone. Its a population thing, ya know.

Hopefully the carriage costs of the PSB to the like of the cable operators will be revisited given how essential some of these company's seem to value their services with their enforced price increases much to the detiriment of their own customers. RTE should be cashing in on such essentialprice increases.

Freddie59

Whoa there Buck!:D Very defensive about RTE there.;) I'm making valid points - population or not. There is no way they should receive both income streams. End of.

'The like of the cable operators'. Seem to have a very large chip growing there. Regarding your comment about a 'little web company', weren't PCs viewed in much the same light all those years ago? But that was also by people with their heads in the sand and their ears covered. I certainly hope YOU'RE not in the TV game!!! I'm CERTAINLY no fan of TV3, but at least they're giving it a go - without State funding.

Look at VoIP. Laughed at in the beginning. Now look at it.

When Sky started the broadcasters took the piss out of it left right and centre (Remember KYTV with Angus Deyton?). Look where Sky are now.

These are all natural progressions, and while you may condemn Magnet's 'crappy web broadcasts' it is worth noting that there are an awful lot of people out there who will use it. And who really don't care about quality once they can watch it. Me? I'd only use it if I were stuck TBH.

I watched it on a 27" iMac. Reasonable enough.

Looks grand on a 17" laptop.

Yep, it's no broadcast signal - I'll grant you that. But not as bad as you make out.

It'll be interesting to see how it develops.

Interesting times ahead. Particularly for our incumbent State broadcaster.

Moriarty

.. straying even more off topic, I wonder if FG have contemplated whether RTE (perhaps ex-RTE NL) is not a strategic state assest and liable to be fully spun off at some point relatively soon..

watty

RTE NL is definately a strategic asset as not only is the TV transmission AND distribution for 3 TV stations, they also have over 150 sites used also for Local Radio, Mobile Radio, Mobile and Fixed Wireless Broadband.

It was stupidity that the Uk forced sale of BBC sites and that BBC and ITA sites from 1955 not under single national infrastructure. Similarly they should have separated the British Post office in three, Infrastructure (to be kept), Post and Phones retail.

rlogue

TV delivered over IP is the future but that future is some way off yet. It will need fibre to the home and the technology used to compress live video over the web needs to get to the point where a TV channel delivered via IP on the Internet is of the same quality as that of satellite.

I now stream the output from my HTPC over a homeplug network at home. I can now receive HD channels via PCs and a TV connected to a media server anywhere in my house. It's a far better solution than magic eyes and coax cable distributing a single analogue output from a Sky box I can tell you!

Freddie59

watty wrote: »

RTE NL is definately a strategic asset as not only is the TV transmission AND distribution for 3 TV stations, they also have over 150 sites used also for Local Radio, Mobile Radio, Mobile and Fixed Wireless Broadband.

It was stupidity that the Uk forced sale of BBC sites and that BBC and ITA sites from 1955 not under single national infrastructure. Similarly they should have separated the British Post office in three, Infrastructure (to be kept), Post and Phones retail.

Agree 100%. infrastructure such as you have describer (or the likes of, say, ESB) should never be allowed fall into private hands.

Freddie59

rlogue wrote: »

TV delivered over IP is the future but that future is some way off yet. It will need fibre to the home and the technology used to compress live video over the web needs to get to the point where a TV channel delivered via IP on the Internet is of the same quality as that of satellite.

I now stream the output from my HTPC over a homeplug network at home. I can now receive HD channels via PCs and a TV connected to a media server anywhere in my house. It's a far better solution than magic eyes and coax cable distributing a single analogue output from a Sky box I can tell you!

Sounds awesome!

icdg

Magnet chief executive Mark Kelett is interviewed in today's Sunday Business Post, rather unrepetant about the WebTV service (come to think of it, isn't that name already trademarked by a subsidary of Microsoft Corporation?). Copyright law bedamned - "we are facilitating the availablity of public sector broadcasting". Apparently they've also added feeds from the Oireachtas CCTV service (that were already on the web at the Oireachtas website) too.

The article does have a bit of inaccuracy in it, it makes reference to the Article 264 reference by the English High Court in Murphy v Media Protection Services, saying that the court has already ruled that you cannot divide Europe up into seperate countries in terms of media rights. In fact the Court has ruled no such thing, there is an Advocate-General's opinion saying that the practice of limiting the selling of subscriptions to certain markets is contrary to the freedom to provide services in the Internal Market but there is as of yet no ruling from the Court itself.

rlogue

Nevertheless since RTE are unwilling to stream their TV channels either inside or outside Ireland Magnet are clearly intending to do it instead. I disagree with their view that a TV Licence isn't needed though.

watty

"we are facilitating the availablity of public sector broadcasting"

Illegal anywhere in EU without written permission of the Broadcaster.

Free To air and even "Must carry" doesn't give ANY 3rd party rights to distribution without permission. Same virtually every Country on Earth.

This will be interesting.

RTE do more streaming than TG4 or TV3. Most of the output is available online. They even have a portal for PS3, though it seems no different to what is on Website (also on PS3 as well as PC).

It's international version streaming that should be the RTE priority though.

rlogue

Yes I would agree that the international channel should be streamed as a high priority. The emergence of more and more web enabled TVs, blu ray players and set top boxes for various digital TV services ought to be seen by RTE as an opportunity.

Will they have the vision to do so? I would not pop down to Paddy Power to put any money on it...

who is this

Yeah I cannot understand their POV on the licence.

Wasn't this already dealt with when RTÉ launched Player, and the conclusion was reached that any kind of RTÉ content required a licence?

loyatemu

who is this wrote: »

Yeah I cannot understand their POV on the licence.

Wasn't this already dealt with when RTÉ launched Player, and the conclusion was reached that any kind of RTÉ content required a licence?

I don't think so - you would need a license for any internet connected PC then. I know Eamonn Ryan was muttering something along these lines before he was evicted from Leinster House but it wasn't written into law and I haven't heard of any test cases...

rlogue

The issue is whether or not viewing a live stream requires a television licence. I would argue it does. In fact the BBC specifically state on their site that the premises from which you view their live streams from must be licenced or your home dwelling must be licenced if you are watching outside.

watty

I'd agree that's one issue.

The previous government thought they might exempt phones (becuase tiny screen and portable). However there are many models with Composite or HDMI outputs to feed full size Monitors.