Earlier this month we noted how Disney and ESPN had sued Sling TV for the cardinal sin of actually trying to innovate. Sling TV’s offense: releasing new, more convenient day, weekend, or week-long shorter term streaming subscriptions that provided an affordable way to watch live television.
These mini-subscriptions, starting at around $5, have already proven to be pretty popular. But, of course, it challenges the traditional cable TV model of getting folks locked into recurring (and expensive) monthly subscriptions. Subscriptions that often mandate that you include sports programming many people simply don’t want to pay for.
So of course Time Warner has now filed a second lawsuit (sealed, 1:25-mc-00381) accusing Dish Network of breach of contract. In the complaint, Warner Bros lawyer David Yohai argues that this kind of convenience simply cannot be allowed:
“The passes fundamentally disrupt this industry-standard model by allowing customers to purchase access to the most sought-after programming, such as major sports events, essentially a la carte for a fraction of the cost that the consumer would have had to pay to watch the event on a pay-per-view basis. For example, a sports fan could simply purchase a day pass and watch select programming, such as a highly popular sports game, without purchasing a month-long subscription or paying a higher pay-per-view fee.”
Not disruption and convenience!
Sling couldn’t have asked for a better marketing campaign
The passes fundamentally disrupt this industry-standard model by allowing customers to purchase access to the most sought-after programmin
Wait wait wait, I thought disruption was good? 🤔
Only when Silicon Valley does it to someone else!
This is so petty and a perfect example of why american capitalism is horrible and the government does nothing to control corporations or monopolies.
“For example, a sports fan could simply purchase a day pass and watch select programming, such as a highly popular sports game, without purchasing a month-long subscription or paying a higher pay-per-view fee.”
WOW. The greed is insane! What total pieces of sh*t! They’re not even hiding it
To paraphrase:
“For example, someone could purchase a single sandwich, instead of a loaf of bread, several pounds of meat and cheese, various produce items, and a few jars of condiments.”
Do they not see how dumb they sound!?
They’re suing over the creation of competition in the market? Certainly an interesting strategy. I hope WB, Disney, and every other scum-sucker that thinks suing is acceptable gets raked across the coals.
This is suing for the ability to price fix.
They said it without directly saying it. They want to be able to price fix to keep their investors happy and someone is now stepping on the toes of the investors and they want to force sling to raise their price or pay them (mafia tactics) to continue operating.
Any company involved in this lawsuit should be forced to provide their subscription to all current users for free for the next 2-5 years or shutter their streaming service indefinitely.
I know what it’s about. Best part is that at an entry fee of $5, Sling aren’t even undercutting the market enough to allow an anti-competition lawsuit against them. So long as Sling can afford the lawyer fees, a dismissal and reversal should be a cake walk.
Yeah, this sure sounds like the “free market” correcting itself as these people love to prattle on about.
The only competition they want to have, is basically when they put their acquisitions against eachother like fighting with toy soldiers and see who can impress their corporate masters the most. It’s sickening.
So it’s the lightbulb syndicate again eh?
I always wonder why people venerate Edison so much. He did innovate, but man was he a shifty barron.
The quote is chefs kiss they’re not even trying to hide that shit. Imagine you could watch a sports event without getting virtually mugged
The passes fundamentally disrupt this industry-standard model
Funny how they didn’t care about how streaming in general disrupted cable. Or how cable disrupted broadcast. Or how tv disrupted radio …
i ask everyone i meet if they’ve accepted their lord and saviour jellyfin into their lives.
Wake me up when Jellyfin does live sports
Jellyfin can use .m3u playlists for live TV. It’s a bit of work to get it going, but it is possible.
It’s a little annoying to get going but it’s doable.
It already does. Just google iptv on jellyfin and find one of the articles that teaches you how to load a .m3u into jellyfin. Boom live tv.
I pray to no false gods. But I do cherish Jellyfins daddy Emby. I would probably use Jellyfin but I have a lifelong emby paid from donating when they first took over MB.
I too have lifetime Emby and still use it today. Media browser renamed to Emby. They took the M and B from the old name to get the new one.
Wrong prophet but I like the religion.
Business idea: Get subscriptions to Disney and ESPN streaming services, then let other people buy access to those accounts for one day at a time. You’d log in for them and give them the session cookie, or something like that. Shouldn’t be too hard to find a country in which that isn’t breaking any laws, although I’m guessing it’s probably not the USA.
It’s certainly breaking TOS, so the country you’re in doesn’t matter.
I’m not a lawyer, but I suspect that you may be overestimating the extent to which every piece of bullshit inserted into a TOS document that nobody reads is universally enforceable.
It’s not a legal issue. They’d just shut down any accounts doing this. They already detect and shut down account sharing and this is just a variant of that. No law or government intervention necessary.
One could make it technically somewhat difficult to shut down, but better yet would be to get some timely government intervention, on the side of defending our rights to do such things on the same kind of principle as the well-established doctrine of first sale.
This is basically mafia. Boycott them, people!
I expect them to come after Pluto and Tubi in the future…
We can’t have nice things. Either those two get sued or outright bought.
Also, choke on a dick, Yohai, you fucktard.
Normally I’d say Sling didn’t have a prayer under this administration, but Disney has pissed everybody off - including the Grand Cheeto - so I’m just gonna go stock up on some popcorn…
I wonder if these guys somehow have something to do with the DRM lockdown that ATSC 3 is trying to pull for OTA broadcast TV as well.
