Last night Sarah and I were in the middle of a long walk and happened upon this FILA sports store on Madison Ave at 43rd street:
In the window there was a TV broadcast of a live tennis match between Ivanovic and Dushevina at the US Open:
At closer look, we noticed the video was playing in an Internet Explorer browser window that was streaming through justin.tv:
Pretty nifty! But also, kind of a red flag, unfortunately. The most popular channels in the justin.tv directory, in general, are sports broadcasts that are being ripped from traditional TV:
The most popular channel at the time of this posting is one called live24.
The person responsible for streaming this broadcast of ESPN has embedded the video on their site called P2Pstation.net. The ad filled anonymous website claims it “does NOT host any streaming media or scrambling software and does NOT endorse the publication of copyright material of any kind”. But they do anyway:
The second most popular streamer on justin.tv right now is sportscenter with a live streaming broadcast of the Broncos vs. Cardinals football game from CBS’s Channel 4 in Denver:
Technically speaking, I think it’s interesting that anonymous people are using sites like justin.tv to rebroadcast mainstream media over i.p. to TV’s receiving the streams over i.p. in stores that then rebroadcast out windows to city passerbys in the streets of New York City. A sign of the times indeed.
Of course everyone could have all their deals worked out here but more than likely, on the legal side of things, this would be considered bad behavior by justin.tv for condoning all of the popular MSM broadcasts (this is what’s making the site popular right now), the people who are using justin.tv to create the streams and even FILA which seems to be rebroadcasting the material as part of their advertising display units. Right or wrong, this is what is happening these days in a world near you.
