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TV technology at edge of legal frontier By Andrew Wallenstein LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Days after the Supreme Court weighed in on digital copyright infringement issues in the MGM v. Grokster case, select consumer electronics chains began stocking a product some predict could spark the entertainment industry's next showdown over intellectual property rights. New to the shelves of Best Buy and CompUSA this month is Slingbox, a brick-sized device that enables viewers to route the live television signal coming into their homes to a portable device anywhere on the globe via broadband connection. Slingbox costs $250 and has no subsequent subscription fee; several stores sold out on the first day. Created by San Mateo, Calif.-based company Sling Media, Slingbox is the most prominent example of a handful of new ventures trying to repeat what TiVo achieved through time-shifting with technology capable of what loosely is referred to as place-shifting. Leading place-shifting firms even have drawn interest from cable operators interested in potential partnerships. But a mechanism that transplants a live video feed also could potentially relocate its marketers to a federal courtroom, where they could raise questions about content transmission. "I'll bet there will be a Supreme Court ruling sometime in the next decade specifically addressing this issue: Does the consumer have the right to place-shift as they do time-shift their content?" said Ted Shelton, chief operating officer of Orb Networks, a competitor to Sling Media that offers its own place-shifting software online free of charge. Orb has been on the market since January, collecting 30,000 subscribers with a software-only technology that requires a TV tuner card and also can transmit other forms of media stored on a hard drive. Place-shifting is problematic to many copyright holders because it sidesteps what is known in legalese as proximity control, which restricts the distribution of content to specific regions and times. It's a standard contractual stipulation for the Motion Picture Assn. of America, whose member studios license distribution rights to movies for distinct territories; the National Football League, which considers geographic limits the linchpin of lucrative television deals, including its Sunday Ticket pact with DirecTV; and local television stations, which pony up millions of dollars for exclusive territorial rights to all kinds of programing. "Slingbox is one manifestation of what we assume will be a cascade of similar products that are meant to manipulate our signals in ways that we think will be harmful to the network-affiliate business, if not the law," CBS executive vp Martin Franks said. Putting aside the piracy risks, place-shifting critics offer plenty of scenarios that put the technology in murky legal territory. Two Slingbox subscribers could send each other programing unavailable in their respective areas; an East Coast viewer could stream "Survivor" to the West Coast three hours early. The West Coast viewer could return the favor by providing access to a premium channel the East Coast viewer doesn't pay to receive.
http://www.microsite.reuters.com
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