I love Hulu, it is my number one destination for televisions shows and movies and if it had music videos Youtube would be out of my browser history in a matter of days. It is one of the only major streaming video companies that is not floundering or loosing money at massive rates and is quickly approaching the number two spot right under Youtube. All of this with the approval of the labels, an incredible feat to say the least. Still, with this great content at our fingertips people insist on complaining about Hulu’s restrictions which is to say the least, ridiculous.
What people don’t seem to realize is that Hulu’s business hangs at the mercy of the labels which are very wary of putting their content online and rightfully so. People for some odd reason expect everything on the web to be free of charge, some even think it should be free of charge with no advertisements and be paid for distributing it. A fascinatingly ridiculous thought to say the least, and it doesn’t help any when we choose to defy the labels instead of work with them.
Lately Hulu has been criticicized for blocking Boxee access to their content, and of course instead of Boxee working with Hulu they skirted around the issue by enabling RSS feeds which were later blocked again. More recently Boxee has attempted to fake out Hulu by creating a browser based off of Mozilla to watch Hulu videos. This does two things for the situation.
1. You Tick Off Hulu
Hulu has enough to worry about with advertising rates dropping steadily and labels most likely expecting an increased return in the near future. So skirting around the terms Hulu has set out will not make them happy and will just put a bad tase in their mouth.
2. You Hinder New Opportunites
I am sure Hulu would rather focus on maximizing revenue and working on getting content to services such as Boxee under their terms that work with their business model and are approved for the labels instead of blocking services all day. You also run the risk of the labels simply pulling out of the deal because to many people are not using the content in the context they wanted, effectively wiping out a very good thing and tarnishing any future ventures labels make into the web world.
Even more recent is Hulu blocking foreign viewers from accessing Hulu through proxies and VPN’s dubbing them “Control Freaks” from MG Siegler of Techcrunch. This is obviously a one sided view, what is left out is the intricate contracts that probably restrict viewing from outside of the United States and content rights which one commentor explains in grand detail that are most likely out of Hulu’s immediate control.
In reality it is up to the partnership between the labels and Hulu how you get the content and abusing what is currently in place is only going to hurt everyone in the end. Let Hulu do its thing the right way like it has been and you will be amazed at what you see. Until then sit tight or get no content at all, it can all be gone with the flip of a switch and this has been proven with WMG and Youtube fiasco.
