7 ms·

Justin.tv: Hundreds of channels, nothing on.

26 points by speek 17y ago

kailoa 17y ago
I suppose the problem is that if you are browsing, you are stuck. AngelConf was great. Sports fans love it because they can rely on someone else in a broadcast umbrella to catch events they may not otherwise be able to see.
antiismist 17y ago
justin.tv is great for sports broadcasts. I don't get cable but I want to watch the Lakers in the playoffs. So I watch it on justin.tv (I find the link to the game on atdh.net). It's very useful for me.
- jonknee 17y ago
  And also clearly illegal, they don't have the rights for that type of broadcast. It can't be advertised against and is the only content that people actually watch, two bad omens for JTV.
  - bmj 17y ago
    Yep. This is most popular way to watch European cycling events here in the States, short of paying for a subscription to CyclingTv.com or hoping for a legitimate stream from Versus of NBC Universal.
  - antiismist 17y ago
    It could monetize really well, actually. I'm sure that jtv has already thought of this, but they can be the hulu of live broadcasts. I've seem ad overlays as well on Justin.tv for what it's worth. (Also, copyright violation is not the same thing as "illegal". It is a civil violation.)
    - jonknee 17y ago
      With 90% of traffic being foreign, the odds of being able to successfully monetize is slim. And copyright violation is illegal and you can go to prison for it (though JTV has a good excuse in that it's user generated). Making it the cornerstone of your business is risky. People go to prison for copyright violations fairly frequently, the owners of EliteTorrents are a recent example: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/06/jury-convicts-elitetorrents-admin-with-mpaa-help.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/06/jury-convict...
    - dinkumthinkum 17y ago
      One second there partner; I think you need to go back to law school on that one. It is certainly "illegal" to violate copyright law.
      - antiismist 17y ago
        Illegal usually applies to criminal law, not civil law. I do know that there are some criminal copyright violations. My point would be just that it's not proper to say that copyright violations are illegal because most copyright violations are in the realm of property law, not criminal law.
  - emmett 17y ago
    1) We're fully DMCA compliant. 2) The vast majority of our content is user created.
    - jonknee 17y ago
      You make a platform really easy to illegaly carry live video and then skirt around the law because if you get caught in the act you nuke the feed. How awesome of you. If you looked at your site you could kill feeds left and right, they are obviously illegal. Why don't you do this? (Here's a guess--it would kill your business.) Percentage wise I believe you that most of the content is user created. But attention wise it can't be close. Let's look at your "sports" section: http://www.justin.tv/directory/sports http://www.justin.tv/directory/sports Right now there's a bootlegged feed of ESPN, a couple of soccer games you don't have the rights for and a variety of other content that is copyrighted. Those are the most viewed, your user generated content is being watched by no one. You're running a scam. (And for what it's worth, on the technical side I admire what you guys have done. I just think it's super shady to base your business on looking the other way when your users steal content. You're building an online cable network without paying for content.)
      - randallsquared 17y ago
        > If you looked at your site you could kill feeds left and right, they are obviously illegal. Why don't you do this? (Here's a guess--it would kill your business.) Here's another guess: it would remove any hope of using common carrier status (or whatever the DMCA equivalent is called). Once you proactively identify infringing material, you become responsible for anything you don't remove, if I understand correctly. Taking on legal responsibility for any failure to notice a copyright-violating feed seems like a risk that a startup can't take.
      - utnick 17y ago
        http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi "Finally, the service provider must not have knowledge that the material or activity is infringing or of the fact that the infringing material exists on its network." I think part of being a DMCA compliant safe harbor is not knowing there is infringing material, if they remove stuff, that implies that they have the ability to know about the infringing material. Its kind of a loophole in the DMCA.
  - mlLK 17y ago
    These are not only omens for Justin.tv but also for any new media intermediary, such as youtube or vimeo, where even if their ToS prohibits X, users continue to violate X on a day-to-day basis. . .users of these sort of services are almost always ignorant (except the users who study or know copyright law) or simply don't care how or where they're republishing content of entertainment merit, and I don't think they should. DMCA is a pain in the ass, and unfortunately it results in a superfluous amount of content and user banishment. This omen reminds me a lot of what occurred in TPB trial.
emmett 17y ago
If you're interested in our actual traffic, rather than poorly scaled charts with cherrypicked start and end dates, please examine the real data at: http://www.quantcast.com/justin.tv#traffic http://www.quantcast.com/justin.tv#traffic
- abstractbill 17y ago
  Particularly the 'month' view (button directly above the graph on that page).
- TimothyFitz 17y ago
  What happened in March that you saw such a traffic surge?
  - teej 17y ago
    Probably March Madness.
vaksel 17y ago
Personally I think for JustinTV to go the next level, they need to create their own webchannel. By this I mean 1 official channel promoted on the front page that runs the same concrete shows at the same times. To start with you obviously wouldn't do 24/7. I'd probably just do it Saturday/Sunday from 12 to 5 pm. That gives you 10 hours of content to fill. And you'll be hitting your main audience when they are home and can tune in. For content, the first couple of months just reuse the content posted by current users. And in the meanwhile hold tryouts to fill host slots. If you do 10, 1 hour shows, each host will have a whole week to produce their piece.
numbchuckskills 17y ago
Justin.tv is great in it's original concept: livecasting and live events broacasted by the USERS. Unfortunate / fortunate for Justin.tv, this is also a great platform for pointing your camera at your TV to steal the latest and greatest live events (like sports.) Justin.tv is never going to be as big as it is now (the niche of people wanting to lifestream isn't that big), but it doesn't mean it can't be a good small business. Staying on the current path (growing too big too fast in something you can't do) is a recipe for failure imo.
levtodd 17y ago
Tried to watch the ferret nest channel and it just loaded forever!
- abstractbill 17y ago
  It's loading fine for me right now. Any chance you're behind a firewall? Feel free to email me some details of your setup (browser, OS, Flash version, anything else you can think of) and I'll take a look - bill@justin.tv

26 points by speek 17y ago

I suppose the problem is that if you are browsing, you are stuck. AngelConf was great. Sports fans love it because they can rely on someone else in a broadcast umbrella to catch events they may not otherwise be able to see.

antiismist 17y ago

justin.tv is great for sports broadcasts. I don't get cable but I want to watch the Lakers in the playoffs. So I watch it on justin.tv (I find the link to the game on atdh.net). It's very useful for me.

jonknee 17y ago
And also clearly illegal, they don't have the rights for that type of broadcast. It can't be advertised against and is the only content that people actually watch, two bad omens for JTV.
- bmj 17y ago
  Yep. This is most popular way to watch European cycling events here in the States, short of paying for a subscription to CyclingTv.com or hoping for a legitimate stream from Versus of NBC Universal.
- antiismist 17y ago
  It could monetize really well, actually. I'm sure that jtv has already thought of this, but they can be the hulu of live broadcasts. I've seem ad overlays as well on Justin.tv for what it's worth. (Also, copyright violation is not the same thing as "illegal". It is a civil violation.)
  - jonknee 17y ago
    With 90% of traffic being foreign, the odds of being able to successfully monetize is slim. And copyright violation is illegal and you can go to prison for it (though JTV has a good excuse in that it's user generated). Making it the cornerstone of your business is risky. People go to prison for copyright violations fairly frequently, the owners of EliteTorrents are a recent example: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/06/jury-convicts-elitetorrents-admin-with-mpaa-help.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/06/jury-convict...
  - dinkumthinkum 17y ago
    One second there partner; I think you need to go back to law school on that one. It is certainly "illegal" to violate copyright law.
    - antiismist 17y ago
      Illegal usually applies to criminal law, not civil law. I do know that there are some criminal copyright violations. My point would be just that it's not proper to say that copyright violations are illegal because most copyright violations are in the realm of property law, not criminal law.
- emmett 17y ago
  1) We're fully DMCA compliant. 2) The vast majority of our content is user created.
  - jonknee 17y ago
    You make a platform really easy to illegaly carry live video and then skirt around the law because if you get caught in the act you nuke the feed. How awesome of you. If you looked at your site you could kill feeds left and right, they are obviously illegal. Why don't you do this? (Here's a guess--it would kill your business.) Percentage wise I believe you that most of the content is user created. But attention wise it can't be close. Let's look at your "sports" section: http://www.justin.tv/directory/sports http://www.justin.tv/directory/sports Right now there's a bootlegged feed of ESPN, a couple of soccer games you don't have the rights for and a variety of other content that is copyrighted. Those are the most viewed, your user generated content is being watched by no one. You're running a scam. (And for what it's worth, on the technical side I admire what you guys have done. I just think it's super shady to base your business on looking the other way when your users steal content. You're building an online cable network without paying for content.)
    - randallsquared 17y ago
      > If you looked at your site you could kill feeds left and right, they are obviously illegal. Why don't you do this? (Here's a guess--it would kill your business.) Here's another guess: it would remove any hope of using common carrier status (or whatever the DMCA equivalent is called). Once you proactively identify infringing material, you become responsible for anything you don't remove, if I understand correctly. Taking on legal responsibility for any failure to notice a copyright-violating feed seems like a risk that a startup can't take.
    - utnick 17y ago
      http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi "Finally, the service provider must not have knowledge that the material or activity is infringing or of the fact that the infringing material exists on its network." I think part of being a DMCA compliant safe harbor is not knowing there is infringing material, if they remove stuff, that implies that they have the ability to know about the infringing material. Its kind of a loophole in the DMCA.
- mlLK 17y ago
  These are not only omens for Justin.tv but also for any new media intermediary, such as youtube or vimeo, where even if their ToS prohibits X, users continue to violate X on a day-to-day basis. . .users of these sort of services are almost always ignorant (except the users who study or know copyright law) or simply don't care how or where they're republishing content of entertainment merit, and I don't think they should. DMCA is a pain in the ass, and unfortunately it results in a superfluous amount of content and user banishment. This omen reminds me a lot of what occurred in TPB trial.

emmett 17y ago

If you're interested in our actual traffic, rather than poorly scaled charts with cherrypicked start and end dates, please examine the real data at: http://www.quantcast.com/justin.tv#traffic http://www.quantcast.com/justin.tv#traffic

abstractbill 17y ago
Particularly the 'month' view (button directly above the graph on that page).
TimothyFitz 17y ago
What happened in March that you saw such a traffic surge?
- teej 17y ago
  Probably March Madness.

vaksel 17y ago

Personally I think for JustinTV to go the next level, they need to create their own webchannel. By this I mean 1 official channel promoted on the front page that runs the same concrete shows at the same times. To start with you obviously wouldn't do 24/7. I'd probably just do it Saturday/Sunday from 12 to 5 pm. That gives you 10 hours of content to fill. And you'll be hitting your main audience when they are home and can tune in. For content, the first couple of months just reuse the content posted by current users. And in the meanwhile hold tryouts to fill host slots. If you do 10, 1 hour shows, each host will have a whole week to produce their piece.

numbchuckskills 17y ago

Justin.tv is great in it's original concept: livecasting and live events broacasted by the USERS. Unfortunate / fortunate for Justin.tv, this is also a great platform for pointing your camera at your TV to steal the latest and greatest live events (like sports.) Justin.tv is never going to be as big as it is now (the niche of people wanting to lifestream isn't that big), but it doesn't mean it can't be a good small business. Staying on the current path (growing too big too fast in something you can't do) is a recipe for failure imo.

levtodd 17y ago

Tried to watch the ferret nest channel and it just loaded forever!

abstractbill 17y ago
It's loading fine for me right now. Any chance you're behind a firewall? Feel free to email me some details of your setup (browser, OS, Flash version, anything else you can think of) and I'll take a look - bill@justin.tv