TV rights holders this week have unleashed their legal eagles, warning Time Warner Cable that its new distribution scheme is for the birds.
Network legal reps are issuing a flock of heated missives to the nation’s No. 2 cable operator, calling for an immediate halt to a new service that allows subscribers to stream video content to iPads and other tablet devices. Although Time Warner Cable introduced the free app just 24 hours ago, a number of cable network groups have already made it abundantly clear that they had not signed off on any such distribution arrangement.
While the initial barrage consisted of warning shots––programmers dispatched carefully worded reminders that such distribution pathways are not authorized by existing affiliate agreements but stopped short of threatening immediate legal action––this is the latest salvo in the long and bloody war between rights holders and operators. A similar barrage was leveled at Comcast after the cable giant demoed its new Xfinity TV app on Jan. 5.
TWC is actually a bit late to the game, following on the heels of Comcast, Cablevision and DISH Network. The satellite-TV company introduced its iPad app on Dec. 1, 2010.
While TWC is concentrating on in-home tablet streaming––iPad users can only stream content within spitting distance of their primary set-top box––content owners argue that the portable wrinkle is not explicitly sanctioned by existing carriage deals.
“Distribution via any sort of third-party app is not addressed in our carriage deals with Time Warner Cable or any other operator,” said one affiliate chief. “There is going to be a messy dissection of what the rights are, but our position is that [this sort of distribution] is not authorized by our affiliate agreements.”
TWC CEO Glenn Britt has cautiously navigated the syntactic rapids, offering carefully worded assessments about the nature of the service. “Certainly all the business structures with the owners of copyrights are not fully in place, but you can begin to see a very exciting future for this set of industries and for the American consumer,” Britt said last August, after announcing plans to bow the iPad app. “There is great potential in all these devices . . . But it’s also a complicated process.”
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