Saturday's Mayweather-McGregor boxing match was one of the most pirated events, with such streams reaching almost 3 million viewers, and sporting events are increasingly a piracy target, anti-piracy tech firm Red Points blogged Monday. Facebook has tightened its copyright protection, using a filter like YouTube's Copyright ID system, but Twitter Periscope employs no such protection, Red Points said, saying availability "is clearly driving piracy." Red Points said indications are large numbers of people planned to watch the fight illegally in the U.K. -- where watching would otherwise require a Sky subscription. It said MVPDs could consider more customized subscriptions, pay-per-view or one-off payment structures.
Content costs are rising as streaming services seeking original content cause a bidding war for top production talent, Kagan emailed investors Tuesday. It said Netflix's general and administrative expenses in Q2 are up 55 percent year over year, and Amazon has similar G&A expense growth. The trend started in 2011 when Netflix partnered with director David Fincher on House of Cards. In recent weeks, Netflix has announced a deal with Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes; Amazon with The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman; and Hulu hired away AMC's Joel Stillerman to be its chief content officer, Kagan noted.
Flixster Video ceased streaming and download options for customers, it said in a notice on its website Monday. The subscription online video distributor said the shutdown was "due to circumstances beyond our control related to the unexpected shutdown of a critical vendor." Fandango bought Flixster in 2016 (see 1603230022).
Facebook Pages that "repeatedly share stories marked as false" by third-party fact-checking organizations won't be allowed to advertise on the site, blogged product managers Satwik Shukla and Tessa Lyons Monday. They said they've found instances on Pages where ads were used to build audiences and spread fake news. If the Pages stop sharing such news, they would be allowed to run ads again. The product managers said the update will "disrupt the economic incentives and curb the spread of false news." Facebook and other companies have taken actions over the last year to fight fabricated stories (see 1705090037, 1704120004, 1703200052 and 1701040025).
Sony Pictures video titles will be available at Redbox kiosks the same day as retail sell-through dates, under a new distribution agreement, said the companies in a news release. The agreement takes effect next month, they said. Redbox announced a similar pact with Lionsgate earlier this month. In July, Redbox signed a deal with 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment making that studio's content available for Redbox DVD rentals seven days after retail sell-through dates.
Facebook has a good opportunity to catch up with YouTube through its Watch video tab, nScreenMedia's Lloyd Dixon blogged Thursday. People watch seven times as many hours on YouTube as Facebook, the average YouTube video has a 75 percent completion rate, vs. 13 percent for Facebook, and 85 percent of Facebook video views are with the audio off, he said. Facebook's Watch tab -- and accompanying push for original content -- will make viewing more accessible to Facebook users, the analyst said: Facebook's 2 billion users, vs. YouTube's 1.3 billion, also are a strength.
Regardless of whether it was "necessary, accurate or well-executed," a February 2016 work by YouTube video makers Ethan and Hila Klein was unquestionably criticism and commentary of a work by fellow YouTuber Matt Hosseinzadeh, said U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest of Manhattan in an order (in Pacer) Wednesday. It dismissed Hosseinzadeh's motion for summary judgment in his copyright infringement and defamation lawsuit, and granted the Kleins' similar motion. Counsel for Hosseinzadeh didn't comment Thursday.
The FTC cleared the way for Sony Pictures TV Networks to acquire 95 percent of Japanese anime distributor Funimation Productions, said an early termination notice ending the transaction’s Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period. Sony announced the $143 million deal in late July.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's 2016 preliminary injunction against online streaming service VidAngel (see 1702100010). In an opinion (in Pacer) Thursday, the 9th Circuit dismissed VidAngel's interpretation of the 2005 Family Movie Act, saying its process of decryption and copying before filtering violates intellectual property rights protection. VidAngel's read also "would create a giant loophole" in copyright law by sanctioning infringement if there was some filtering and a copy of the work was legally purchased at some point, it said. The 9th Circuit said VidAngel's buys of DVDs it then ripped and streamed doesn't excuse its infringement and it rejected the company's argument it's authorized to decrypt the technical protection measures to view the discs' content. The court said the Digital Millennium Copyright Act exempts from circumvention liability only those whom a copyright owner authorizes to circumvent an access control measure. Deciding were Judges Carlos Bea, Andrew Hurwitz and Leslie Kobayashi, with Hurwitz penning the opinion. VidAngel said in a statement it's disappointed and "reviewing our strategy for moving forward." It said the 9th Circuit ruling "has absolutely no impact on VidAngel's current service, we remain open for business. On the legal front, we are just getting started. We will fight for a family's right to filter on modern technology all the way." U.S. District Court in Los Angeles earlier this month denied VidAngel's counterclaims against plaintiffs Disney, Lucasfilm, Fox and Warner Bros. (see 1708110038).
Apple, with its deep pockets, has the opportunity "to do something new and unique" in premium TV with its reported plans to spend $1 billion on original video content next year, The Diffusion Group's (TDG) Joel Espelien blogged Wednesday. TDG said licensing content would give it zero differentiation from existing MVPDs, but its own content would give Apple "something interesting on which to spend its already-committed marketing dollars, without benefiting other content owners." Pointing to the BBC putting out a small number of Sherlock episodes yearly, TDG said Apple likely will follow a similar model of a small number of high-quality shows that generate buzz on release and have a decent tail of shelf life. Rather than movies or sports programming, Apple might find more fertile programming ground in science-related reality programming, TDG said.