The streaming video market could see a big competitive boost from a preliminary federal court decision Thursday in a lawsuit against online streaming service FilmOn X, Public Knowledge said. The decision by U.S. District Court Judge George Wu in Los Angeles was that FilmOn X could be entitled to a compulsory license under Section 111 of the Copyright Act as it operates somewhat akin to a cable system. "Similar services should not be subject to totally different rules depending on whether they are offered over coaxial cable, fiber, satellite transmissions or online," said John Bergmayer, Public Knowledge senior staff attorney, in a statement. One of the plaintiffs, Fox, said that the Wu decision doesn't allow FilmOn X to resume streaming its broadcast signal because it remains under a preliminary injunction. In a statement Friday, plaintiff CBS said the court announcement "does not resolve anything, as it is only a tentative ruling. It is also wrong, as other courts and the US Copyright Office -- which administers Section 111 -- has rejected that position." The ruling also only concerns copyright law, and does not address the separate issue of retransmission consent that multichannel video programming distributors must obtain from programmers, CBS said. Parties in the case have until July 23 to submit a joint proposed judgment, after which the court will enter a final judgment and certify the case for appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Expect post-transaction Charter Communications' broadband offerings to be even better for customers and online video, the cable company said in an ex parte filing posted Friday in FCC docket 15-149. It recapped a meeting between Charter executives including Catherine Bohigian, executive vice president-government affairs, and numerous FCC representatives, including General Counsel Jonathan Sallet. Charter reiterated the public benefits arguments it has made to the agency -- that allowing Charter to buy Bright House Communications and Time Warner Cable would bring such benefits as all-digital systems in the BHN and TWC service areas within 30 months of closing, expanded open Internet policies and expanded investment in its broadband business.

HBO's online streaming service, HBO Now, is now viewable on Android and Amazon devices, the company said in a Thursday news release. HBO also plans to have the $14.99-a-month streaming service accessible via Chromecast and on Android TV and Amazon Fire TV, it said.

Netflix backs Charter Communications' buying Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, the online video distributor said in an ex parte filing posted Wednesday at the FCC in docket 15-149. Charter's settlement-free interconnection policy and plans to extend that two BHN and TWC "is a welcome and significant departure from the efforts of some ISPs to collect access tolls on the Internet," the online video distributor said in an ex parte filing posted Wednesday in FCC docket 15-149. As long as free peering is a condition of the BHN and TWC acquisitions, Netflix said, it would support it. Charter has had a settlement-less interconnection policy for years, and plans to keep one at least through 2018, the cable company said in a separate filing Wednesday. Charter submitted its recently updated interconnection policy, which indicates that applicants providing content to Charter customers can tie into its IP network, and those interconnections will be done "at no charge to either party for traffic exchange," Charter said.

Correction: The video competition report on which the FCC seeks comment is the 17th annual report (see 1507020044).

Charter Communications expects to see $800 million in cost savings from its planned acquisitions of Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable, Charter said in a filing posted Monday in FCC docket 15-149. The public version of the letter, in response to a request from FCC staff, is highly redacted and gives no details about what specific cost savings Charter expects. Those savings are anticipated to come from programming costs and from "less overhead and management structure than the three companies require separately," as well as from reductions in administrative labor costs and in duplicative facilities, Charter said. It reiterated that the three companies have almost no overlapping customer base. Among their commercial customers, fewer than 1,000 customers are in census blocks where at least two of the three companies operate commercial broadband service -- meaning 0.09 percent of their roughly 1.1 million commercial broadband customers, Charter said. The company previously argued before the FCC that the residential broadband overlap among the three is also miniscule (see 1507060040). Meanwhile, the Charter/BHN/TWC deal could mean a blow to the cable modem industry, modem manufacturer Zoom Telephonics said in separate comments posted Tuesday. While Comcast and TWC customers who use their own cable modems save $8 to $10 on their monthly bills, Charter has no such discount, and "bringing that policy to Time Warner Cable could severely hurt U.S. retailing of cable modems, Zoom Telephonics, Time Warner Cable customers and customer choice," Zoom said. Charter also continues to require that cable modems it certifies first be certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, though that Wi-Fi Alliance approval "is time consuming and expensive" and something other multisystem operators do not require, Zoom said.

Comcast is testing a streaming videogame service in partnership with Electronic Arts, the cable company said Tuesday. Its Xfinity Games offering doesn't use a console or game controllers but is controlled by users' smartphones or tablets, with the games streaming over Comcast Xfinity subscribers' X1 boxes, Comcast said. Xfinity Games follows Comcast's unveiling of its video streaming service, Stream, earlier this week (see 1507130008).

The FCC needs data on the regional sports networks (RSNs) operated by Charter Communications, Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable if it's going to weigh how Charter's proposed takeover of the other two will affect those networks and their pricing, the American Cable Association said in a submission posted Tuesday in docket 15-149. While the market boundaries of stations and nationally distributed cable programming are easily definable, "the precise market boundaries of RSNs are generally known only to their owners," ACA said. So to figure out how the Charter acquisitions will affect competition and consumers, the FCC should start by requesting such data as what regionally distributed sports programming networks are distributed in what census blocks, what professional sports are available on those networks and the geographic footprint of that programming's distribution, ACA said.

Any reinterpretation of multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) to encompass some parts of the over-the-top video world shouldn't come with the FCC directly playing a role in licensing of programming rights for online video distribution, and shouldn't apply to programmers distributing content through applications or services they come up with in house, a group of media companies said in a filing posted Monday in docket 14-261. "New rules seeking to promote innovation and competition in video distribution should not apply to content providers who simply want to continue developing new ways in which consumers can access and enjoy their content," CBS said. Regarding whether the FCC should play a regulatory role in the market for programing rights for online distribution, CBS said that step "would be a troubling and unnecessary influence into private licensing negotiations" and better handled by through existing copyright law than FCC regulation. The ex parte filing followed a meeting last week among executives from CBS, Disney, Time Warner, 21st Century Fox and Viacom and representatives from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's office. Verizon, in a separate ex parte filing on 14-261 posted Monday, said that while it broadly supports including OTT providers of multiple streams of prescheduled, linear video programming in the MVPD definition, those OTT providers shouldn't face "ill-fitted legacy cable regulations, such as franchising, must-carry and technology mandates," as such rules "would discourage the provision of new online video services, undermining the Commission’s goal in this proceeding of generating additional competitive options for consumers." OTT video providers should be subject to such 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act requirements as closed captioning and video description, and the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act's loudness mitigation obligations, Verizon said. The Verizon meeting participants included Leora Hochstein, executive director-federal regulatory affairs, and staff from the Media Bureau and the Office of Strategic Planning.

Comcast is launching a $15-a-month streaming service, Stream, starting later this summer, Matt Strauss, general manager-Comcast Cable video services, said in a company blog post Sunday. Through Stream, Comcast's Xfinity Internet customers will be able to watch live streaming video from close to a dozen networks, as well as numerous on-demand movies and TV shows, on their mobile devices, Strauss said. Stream -- which will be accessed through Comcast's Xfinity TV app -- also will have a cloud-based DVR service for recording and viewing. The Stream rollout will start in Boston late this summer and expand to the Chicago and Seattle markets next, with Comcast expecting it to be available across its coverage area by early 2016, Strauss said.