How Serious Is Justin.tv About Fighting Live Broadcasting Piracy?
Robin Wauters
Dec 15, 2009

Justin.tv, one of the most popular live webcasting services on the net, will be testifying in a hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee tomorrow morning. The topic of the hearing: the future of live online sports broadcasting.

We got hold of the startup’s written and oral testimony, which Justin.tv hopes will be enough to convince the Committee that the nature of live video broadcasting makes it impossible for them to avoid copyrighted content from ending up on the site, whether it’s live sports or other content like TV shows.

Ultimately, Justin.tv calls on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which they claim should provide them with a safe harbor for copyright-infringing content that appears on the website before they or the appropriate right owners get a chance to remove it.

In the testimonies, Justin.tv goes to great lengths to make sure they’re considered a technology provider first and foremost, which delivers a platform that can unfortunately be misused by individuals to violate the rights of third parties. The startup states that it aims to bring live video into the mainstream much like Flickr, The Huffington Post and YouTube have done for online images, news and video clips.

The question is: are they really doing everything they can to fight piracy?

In October 2009, Justin.tv claims to have delivered over forty-seven million hours of live video to over thirty million viewers around the world. The company says it has worked with content owners to assure that the appearance of unauthorized content on Justin.tv remains limited, and that they provide rights owners with tools that permit them to monitor the site and directly initiate the takedown of content they claim is being transmitted without authorization.

In addition, Justin.tv claims to have developed a “commercially-viable” system in partnership with Vobile that permits unauthorized content on the site that is not immediately detected by a copyright owner to be identified and removed automatically from Justin.tv. The company says it does way more than the law requires to prevent illegal content from ending up on the site.

But seriously, all it takes is a visit to this page, which features streams from the most popular “producers”, to see that their efforts have been mostly in vain. As you can tell from the screenshot above, that page is (for now) filled to the rim with unauthorized content, which undoubtedly brings a lot of eyeballs with it. Browse Justin.tv long enough, and you’ll discover everything from movies to TV shows to hardcore porn.

How hard can it be to monitor only the most streamed live channels and take down broadcastings of TV shows such as Friends, South Park and The Office? The biggest copyright infringements are the ones going on in channels that get the most traffic – that’s the nature of the beast – so they shouldn’t be too hard to spot.

Either their identification and fingerprinting technology doesn’t work all that well, or Justin.tv isn’t as serious about fighting piracy as they claim to be in their testimonies.

Or both, of course.


  • Boo

    “their efforts have been mostly in vain”

    you’re full of shit. to know how effect or ineffective it’s been, you’d need to know how many copyrighted videos showed up previously and how many show up now. looking at a page of what looks like copyrighted stuff is simply glossing over a complex issue.

    my guess is their tools are blocking over 70-80% of the copyrighted videos. which still leaves a good number of them out there but relatively its a huge achievement!

  • http://krues8dr.com/ Bill

    You know, it’s articles like this that bring attention to these things and get them pulled, which ruins it for the rest of us. Unless your audience is mostly the MPAA, I guess. So thanks for nothing?

  • Robin Wauters

    I dare bet 70-80% of their traffic comes from copyrighted videos, too.

  • http://www.trhonline.com/ Trae Dorn

    So… you’re pitting *your* guess against *his* guess. Do you understand how your argument is actually less convincing?

  • Boo

    may be in the old days. these days its a pain in the ass to find genuine copyrighted stuff on justin.tv versus just hulu’ing it. plus its not rare to see a channel shutdown while you’re watching something. so jtv’s copyrighted stuff only attracts the lowest hanging media consumers because anyone slightly smart knows there are easier and better places to get the same content.

    you coulda just asked them, ya know.

  • Boo

    my guess is based on being a jtv user since it lauched.

    his is based on a cutiepie screenshot.

    go figure.

  • mike

    There goes my Saturday English Premier League Football. I live in the US and if I could I would buy a subscription but my cable provider doesn’t offer it.

  • Mark

    When a content provider doesn’t want content to be broadcast on Justin.tv they are very good at shutting down channels. For example, try finding a UFC pay per view event on Jtv. The UFC shuts down channels constantly. And I’m not talking about 5-10 channels, I’ve seen hundreds of channels trying to broadcast an event. All shutdown. When that happens the jtv channel posts a link to another site that is broadcasting the fight (Ustream for example) and users will go to those sites to watch the fight online.

    Justin.tv’s argument is that it’s up to content owner to monitor the site and it provides tools to have channels shutdown. I have seen leaked movies (Xmen Origins: Wolverine, for example) get shutdown as well. So Jtv’s solution can work.

    The problem is that a user can just keep re-creating a broadcaster account and try again. In my opinion, its a full time job if NBC doesn’t want “The Office” to be broadcast online. That’s why you don’t see them shutting down channels. The # of viewers may not justify the work of monitoring online content.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Marcus_Greenwood/500095097 Marcus Greenwood

    I sometimes watch football (soccer) on ESPN on justin.tv because it’s the only place I can view it – it is not available via cable in my area. I would be very willing to pay for it if only I could actually do that. Undoubtably the reason it’s not available over the internet by official streams (at least in the UK) is because of some archaic licensing agreement from the 90′s that their lawyers haven’t sorted out yet. These companies could make ridiculous amounts of money by asking people to pay for good quality live game streams as and when they want to watch them.

  • http://www.bing.bg Bing

    If they shut down all copyrighted material this site will die

  • http://techvideoblog.com Charbax

    Preventing piracy could be easy, they should just require that people that setup live streams provide a credit card number and verify a small secret charge (like Paypal and Ebay verifies accounts), or do like Google, verify user is for real by them uploading a html file to their verifiable domain name. Or by receiving a password by mail and entering it in. Or by Justin being allowed to let people who are already registered now and have a long history of legal streams to continue streaming.

    Illegal streaming will happen more on p2p streaming technologies like sopcast, pplive and the dozens of other live p2p video streaming technologies. Those cannot be controlled at all by any intermediaries.

  • http://www.freakyidea.com Freakyincubator

    I agree to Justin tv as its not possible to block copyrighted content being broadcast or shown. Well all there tools will be useless if we just video tape the orignal content. Then none of the tool present in the market can check if its copyrighted.
    You need human intervention to actually watch and check every video.

  • anon

    so is boo a jtv employee, or simply a jtv user who is upset because he knows the end of the line is coming for watching tv and movies on jtv. :D

  • anon

    both of the previous comments go to show that jtv really is in the piracy business. the only users defending them are upset because they know their days are numbered for watching pirated shit.

  • anon

    and how do you explain some of the channels on the top stream page being in existence since summer? Just add /profile to the end of their show to see how long registered. obviously jtv doesnt give a shit about shutting down piracy, it makes them money.

    epic lolz.

  • Mark

    If the content provider hasn’t requested the channel be shutdown then Jtv doesn’t have to do anything.

  • Dan

    I don’t understand the problem, at least with live sports? Justin.tv pays the broadband costs to stream these games (commercials and all) to people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to watch them. That seems like a win for everyone. Obviously payperview events are different story, but they seem to be quicker about removing those.

  • Marvin Moore

    If they do get those ‘copyrighted’ materials off from JTV and gets the site shut down. That is not going to stop the next person to create another kind of streaming site.

  • hehateme

    every NFL game can been had via tons of p2p live streaming apps. stopping piracy is futile.

  • http://www.elgonzi.com El Gonzi

    The copyrighted material has been reduced according to my experience.

  • Evan Solomon

    Justin.tv employee here.

    I want to clear up two things. First, we get more uploaded video than YouTube by about 30% (yes, I am serious) and monitoring all of it is not feasible. Over 150 copyright holders (ex. MLB, ESPN, etc) have access to a tool that lets them instantly remove videos. The request is filed as a DMCA take down notice and processed immediately. We do not take any delay for human processing, it’s immediately removed. We could process normal email messages, as other companies do, and take down the videos several hours later. That offers a substandard solution for live content though, so we added this extra level of protection.

    Second, the live fingerprinting is a double trigger system. We send our scans to Vobile, who matches it against copyright holders who have allowed us to scan for their content. That is running with Fox and has been tested with the NFL/NBC.

    In the screenshot you posted, many, if not all of the rights holders for those broadcasts could choose to remove them instantly.

  • dave.m

    first and foremost, the fingerprint tool only works if the content owner takes the precautionary measures to protect their content. their unwillingness to make these efforts is why these video portals are saturated with copyright content.

  • just_a_worker

    this is great!…thanks for the info…i’m watching south park at work right now and lmao! hardest part is keeping quiet so i don’t get caught…lol

  • anon

    sorry that excuse doesnt work. To say you dont monitor your “top viewed” page is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard. What responsible company doesnt check out the “top” page several times a hour?

    Do you think people are idiots?

    Why not just come out and say it- We make money from pirated content. If we proactively removed even the stuff from the “top” page, our traffic would plummet 50% .

    At least that excuse we can believe.

  • http://www.guiaslocal.com Guias Local

    Why so much hype about JustinTv. You have hundreds of companies that are much better.

  • http://cubrilovic.posterous.com Nik Cubrilovic

    I use Justin.Tv and other sites all the time to watch sports while I am on the road (mostly the football and F1). If I had an alternative, I would gladly take it (even if it was paid) – but until then I will always use livetv.ru and justin.tv to find a stream

    This phenomenon is just the market at work. Give users a real option and they will gladly accept it, otherwise the force of piracy is far too much for somebody like Justin.tv to overcome

  • Vaatsen

    Or rather, you are. You seem to be all over this comment section. What are your vested interests in this topic?

  • Jeremy

    So, Evan – you’ve read this article, seen the copyrighted content in the screencaps, and still aren’t doing anything about those channels? Is there a larger red flag that could possibly be waved about this?

  • LC

    God I hate watching football on Justin.tv but sometimes it’s the only stream I can find, well … when I don’t get kicked because “my country” has too much connections …

    And yes I’m sure Friends producers risk bankruptcy because of Justin.tv.

  • Dude

    Get a slingbox

  • Momar Shackleford

    I done see what the bit deal is it not like we trying to still the whole tv station we just trying to watch one game, one fight, it just a miner issue and thing they have to shut every chanel down the other date me and my girlfriend Tammy Le from Market-Bridge Consultants we have a sit on the couche to watch the game can not enjoy because chanel scramble in 15 minute.

  • Carl Sanborn

    I think Techcrunch is displaying some significant bias here.

    First of all lets get the fact straight – one of Techcrunch’s advertisers and partners is Ustream a company that is fighting neck and neck with Justin.tv. Ustream has paid Techcrunch as an advertiser, streams their events for free, and has even setup a live cam in their office.

    I think Michael Arrington should come clean in any story written on Techcrunch where a competing company has this level of connection with his blog.

    Secondly, Justin.tv is taking a lead in the industry to try to prevent copyrighted content on the site. This story has done nothing to look at the other sites in the industry and compare Justin.tv’s efforts with theirs.

    Lastly, Fox a big content company, has already stated publicly that Justin.tv has taken a leadership position on this front.

    I think this story is unfortunate for Justin.tv – but I wonder why Robin didn’t write the same story about Youtube.

    They have the best content filtering system in the industry and yet check out this page with all of the season 6 Top Chef episodes: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=top+chef+season+6&search_type=&aq=f

  • Joe

    Funny that you chose not to mention UStream, one of Justin.TV’s competitors – they are already being sued for copyright infringement. Seems quite pertinent to this story!

  • Martin

    “monitoring all of it is not feasible”

    Monitoring is easy just go the top channels page

    http://www.justin.tv/directory

  • Eugene

    Give Justin.tv a break. If we still have crime in the country, does it mean that we should dismiss the police force or accuse the police of spreading the crime ???

  • Matt

    Ha Ha what a Joke WWE streams ,European Soccer and Porn all live on Justin.TV NOW!!!

  • Rich Stone

    Ustream is not much better / playing the same game by the way – check
    World Cup in Top channel

    Live Now – World Cup Soccer Game : http://www.ustream.tv/channel/club-world-cup

    Check http://www.ustream.tv/discovery/live/all during sports event.

    I don’t get how the movie/music industry work with them while they tolerate illegal broadcasting on their platform.

    Rich

  • http://www.blazestreaming.com Joe Christensen

    I am a small live sports broadcaster. ESPN may not care about 500 online viewers but in my work that is break even revenue lost.

    Piracy has killed the ability for a small event to go the pay per view route.

    Justin.tv usually responds to my take down notices 22 hours after the email. I then watch as the pirated stream is setup on another channel 5 minutes after the take down.

    A good angle for this story is to focus on the amount of new business opportunities that are lost due to an inability to protect content online. I’m unable to serve the viewer, hire crew, and produce events without a serious risk to my investment.

  • jay

    Its the piracy that drives visitors to their site, without it justin.tv is a ghost town with nothing more than a bunch of 15 year olds playing with their cameras.

  • chaz

    When there’s testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee, does a TC article matter?

  • Boo

    Boo is a longtime TC reader & tipster who dislikes the crappy reporting by new gen of TC writers.

    Bring back Arrington.

  • Boo

    It does because most of House Judiciary folks are clueless. They will google for this shit. And guess what will pop up? Articles like these…which may ultimately influence policy.

  • Boo

    likewise. i watch the lakers game every now and then. the games are not shown nationally and just locally so by me watching it on jtv, i am not taking away ad rev from another national broadcaster.

  • Jack

    Evan,

    JTV has donme an amazing job building an amazing system that can scale. But JTV is also doing quite a bit wrong.

    “monitoring all of it is not feasible.”

    You could easily kill 80% of your copyright problems by doing exactly what Robin said, just kill all the streams that are on the All most popular page:

    “Over 150 copyright holders (ex. MLB, ESPN, etc) have access to a tool that lets them instantly remove videos.”

    This is not their responsibility, this is Justin.tv’s to ensure. You are just passing the buck.

    Hire a 24/7 monitor staff like Stickam and Blogtv have and stop ruining the concept of live streaming for content holders and advertisers.

    “Vobile … That is running with Fox ”

    Yeah, just Fox is the problem. Can’t rely on this solution at all, its a nice tool to use, but need human eyes for now.

    Stop making excuses. You allow this content because it makes pretty graphs and allows you to give nice stats about your growth. Anyone could grow if you allow people to stream copyright content. Anyone remember, DivX???

    Stop trying to make a play like YouTube, take responsibility, clean up your site, and get back to business. Make a great product that people want and you will not have to resort to these type of tactics.

    Great job on the tech, but it’s time to clean up your act and take responsibility.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris_Mori/626511790 Chris Mori

    What the hell techcrunch as soon as you post it… they snatch it off the air… these are the things you dont write about… DERP

  • Kosta Mojeen

    It’s possible they may not be protected under the DMCA for two reasons 1) If the majority use of the site is for infringement 2) If they knowing profit from infringement (via ads/pro accounts)

    A judge would have to decide if either of those are true. I think one could make a convincing argument that both are true.

  • Love Justin tv

    I canceled cable tv cause of it….

    Guess ill enjoy it while it lasts

  • http://www.matteofabiano.com Matteo Fabiano

    Nick, maybe you would take the paid options, which by the way exist (e.g. UEFA live streaming gamepass at $9.99). But the 70% p2P share of internet traffic is proof that most are perfectly happy not paying for content.

  • Carl Sanborn

    *** Looks like my post was either not approved or deleted so I am reposting ***

    I think Techcrunch is displaying some significant bias here.

    First of all lets get the fact straight – one of Techcrunch’s advertisers and partners is Ustream a company that is fighting neck and neck with Justin.tv. Ustream has paid Techcrunch as an advertiser, streams their events for free, and has even setup a live cam in their office.

    I think Michael Arrington should come clean in any story written on Techcrunch where a competing company has this level of connection with his blog.

    Secondly, Justin.tv is taking a lead in the industry to try to prevent copyrighted content on the site. This story has done nothing to look at the other sites in the industry and compare Justin.tv’s efforts with theirs.

    Lastly, Fox a big content company, has already stated publicly that Justin.tv has taken a leadership position on this front.

    I think this story is unfortunate for Justin.tv – but I wonder why Robin didn’t write the same story about Youtube.

    They have the best content filtering system in the industry and yet check out this page with all of the season 6 Top Chef episodes:

    http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=top+chef+season+6&search_type=&aq=f

    Btw – the NewTeeVee story on this same topic is actually balanced:

    http://newteevee.com/2009/12/15/house-committee-takes-on-live-streaming-piracy/

  • allstock23

    Agreed. Yawwwn.

  • Steve

    I’ve come across many an issue with Justin.tv while trying to watch Monday night football. I have ESPN in my cable package, but am away from home Monday nights, and every week right around halftime they start shutting down steams left and right.

    I could see why cable companies would be wary of this because they may see a future where everyone watches their content on-line instead of paying for the cable package, but as far as the networks go, they get most of their revenue from ads. I still see all the same advertisements people watching at home do, so I don’t see why they would take issue with it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jarin_Udom/542601090 Jarin Udom

    I would seriously be pissed off if I couldn’t use Justin.tv and Ustream to watch blacked-out Chargers games

  • totalforge

    Looks like a Justin.tv ‘takedown’ does not bother to block the originating IP. Nor do they seem to have any humans monitoring the top Entertainment pages where movies and TV shows appear constantly. Shows which justin.tv runs ads on top of, no doubt without sharing revenue with the copyright holder. The clock has to be ticking on a massive lawsuit that ends this company’s existence, Napster-style.

  • Ben

    With basketball and baseball, the nba and mlb provide ways for you to watch those games online (for a free obv) so I don’t see how you can use the “i can’t see this game otherwise” argument for those sports. You can pay to watch those streams.

    It’s much harder to watch the EPL here in America. ESPN shows some games on saturdays and the FSC is available as well, but there’s no way to watch all the games.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Joe_Vander_Zanden/100000397405021 Joe Vander Zanden

    Good luck, for every Justin.tv that shuts down, there will be more popping up.

    In the long run, you could just create a disparate p2p network of justin.tv

    People are going to “steal” this stuff. I see the philosophical arguments, but animal economics will always win.

    I wish the industry would spend more energy figuring out ways to adapt and survive.

  • VP BD, Major SNS

    CROOKS ~ trying clever tactics like the youtube guys….old game….why can’t internet guys build businesses the real way….

    THEY HAVE A BAD PROBLEM W/ILLEGAL CONTENT

  • Boo

    jeremy, you should read up on dmca. the way dmca exists at the moment, its all or nothing: if you do monitor and proactively delete shit, you are held liable when you leave something out.

    on the other hand, if you DO NOT do ANY monitoring of responsibility, you are not held as liable because you made it clear from get go you have no hand in what goes on your site.

  • DK

    giving content owners a tool to remove their stuffs from your system is good, i guess. but why do THEY have to do it? Isn’t is your mess to clean up?

    i know it is hard and almost impossible to eliminate privacy completely. but what’s been done so far doesn’t seem enough. like a few guys suggested here, monitoring top channels sounds like something that must be implemented.

  • Boo

    how could they. ustream sponsors TC.

    fuck this. i didnt even know this sponsor angle of the story till now. but knowing it now makes this story so much more strange.

    jtv is doing tonnes to prevent copyrighted shit. tc is a tech blog that generally favors startups. yet the title of this post has a “wtf” feel to it…something that you’d expect on an MPAA blog.

  • Nick

    Actually, better reporting on the issues could help, too.
    For example, Arrington as a lawyer would be able to explain that DMCA offers protections to ISPs but only if
    they do not edit the content (there are other conditions as well).

    So if Justin TV sat down and removed the top 10
    which seems to be something people here are suggesting, the likely results are:
    1. next 10 would also be copyrighted. and next 10 and so on.
    2. they become editors and lose DMCA protections.
    3. it is actually very hard to tell when something is
    copyrighted, what are the terms, what uses are allowed and what are restricted, when something is
    a fair use, who is the owner, or whether the content is copyrighted but the owner is sharing it.

    Instead they decide to live within specified legal limits
    that they can not change themselves. They provide service and take down content as requested by the copyright owner. And I agree, they go a step further by
    providing tools for the owners to take down content immediately themselves, without the delay.

  • indiequick

    +1 – isn’t this the same thing we saw ten years ago with Napster? If the content providers would work WITH JTV, instead of against, the consumers would actually benefit. From this thread it seems that there are a lot of folks who would pay a couple bucks to see the game. Any game.

  • http://www.dotinvesting.com Lee H.

    Didn’t/Don’t they say the same thing of every other online video site, such as Youtube?

    The battle of copyright infringement is misdirected. I think that due to the verdicts handed to a few individual music piraters the studios think they can have the same effect by going after these types of providers. Taking action with them one by one. I get why, but it seems to be the wrong approach.

    It would make more financial sense to throw all those legal expenses at solutions as these types of sites will exist. Whether they are legit or not. Any web savvy user can easily find ripped off content with off-shore providers even if Justin.tv gets shut down.

    So basically IMO they’re wasting their time.

  • http://tweet.iclayway.com/twitter-updates-for-2009-12-15/ Twitter Updates for 2009-12-15 « Tweet

    [...] with there copyright issues – http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/15/justin-tv-piracy/ # [...]

  • Robin Wauters

    Your post didn’t get disapproved or deleted. And you’re a moron to boot:

    http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/17/ustream-sued-by-boxing-promoter-over-pirated-broadcast/

    We keep the editorial separated from the advertising and sponsorships, period.

  • Robin Wauters

    Boo is banned from now on.

  • Robin Wauters
  • yeah

    i was going to say that i was looking for some obvious copyrighted content and someone posted that i could find it on justin tv, but the link/channel/video on justin tv had already been shutdown. i looked around the site trying to find uploads of what i was looking for and really didn’t have any luck on that website. it was my first time on justin tv though, and i still thought it was an interesting website but not my thing because i just google w/e i need or youtube. but compared to how many wbesites there were in the past linking to justin tv for copyrighted content, i don’t think it’s the same way anymore since they started cleaning up the website. i mean you don’t have to look anywhere to see this than the actual website and yahoo answers. people used to say hey if you’re looking for this and this show or live update/w.e. just go to justintv…and it’s not there anymore. now people are wisening the hell up.

  • http://samuraiprojects.com/ conscious

    The customer service on JTV is horrible, if not nonexistent.
    The admins are active at all hours of the day, and regularly ban users without any reason or notice. Case in point: my account I had up for nearly two years became suspended. No reason given, no way to find out who did it. I was actually sleeping when it happened.
    I found myself at some third-party forum where you can setup a ‘case’ for getting your account reinstated. After paragraphs explaining myself and asking for any reason why this occurred, all I got was a ‘your account has been restored’ message added to the Ticket. But guess what? My IP was banned, and continues to be over a month later. I’ve added a new message to the ticket repeatedly asking why they would bother restoring my account if I can’t access it from my home IP, and why it hasn’t been removed as well… no response. Nothing.
    I know for a fact there are numerous admins that monitor and respond to issues on their forums, and from speaking with a few of them their official stance has remained that they have no power to pull down a broadcast – something I know to be incorrect, as the ONLY types of broadcasts that are pulled are those with nudity.
    Broadcasting of tv shows, movies and sporting events sit untouched most likely because the JTV staff enjoy watching them and can hide behind a veil of ‘We do as much as we can’.
    As easy as it is for a user to log on and see umpteen copyrighted broadcasts, the massive slew of voluntary(unpaid) Admins JTV employs could remove broadcasts just as easily by looking at the Producer/All Broadcasts pages and pick them off. It doesn’t happen because the inclusion of such content has made JTV incredibly popular, and they must have assumed they could rely on ignorance and take a hands-off approach when it came time for the hammer to fall.
    Now that hammer is falling, and I’m quite surprised that this is going all the way to the HJC.
    I’d like to see JTV remain online as there are original lifecasts I find entertaining and help to moderate. You can bet if the staff follow the rules though the cash cow will cease and due to experience, I have a strong hunch they will take out their bad moods on their users.

  • yeah

    yeah i was trying to get some footy matches a couple weeks back and googled and found a site saying i could get the match on justin tv, but it wasn’t on the website. i did find a great couple of alternatives for soccer though and much easier. a lot of people also mentioned slingbox too.

  • yeah

    dude, justin tv isn’t the only way to watch footy on the tv. i know because i found that out a couple weeks ago trying to find some uefa matches online without using the uefa pay and watch option. fans of football are really resourceful and help each other out.

  • yeah

    yeah i don’t get it. i’ve been to the website maybe twice my entire life, stayed for one of those times to look around and the other because something was interesting but i actually didn’t find the copyrighted content i was looking for. i don’t know how good the website is because i’m not a user, but it seems alright. i mean all these guys complaining about the sports, trust me. i’m in the same boat, but i don’t use justin tv and i can one way or another through google, and yahoo answers always find a way to watch what game i need to online. there are other free sites that have epl games, you don’t need to sign up, be a user, or pay for anything. everything is possible online. i don’t know why so many people want to stop that but that’s the case.

  • yeah

    i don’t justin tv but i can watch all the footy i want online free all the time. thank god for fans.

  • Logan Frederick

    That’s beside the point.

    If they’re making an effort to block that content and push their service in a legal direction, I’m not sure what more can be asked of them.

    What if some place like Flickr got a huge flood of porn? If they try to stop it but can’t, that’s hardly the fault of the platform creators.

  • Forrest

    i can find just about any movie or series i want on google ..i can download or stream them online ..with jtv there is the added chat ..now what about google, youtube, ustream and the 100′s of torrent sites where the content originates?
    i think JTV is unfairly targeted when there are many other sources of content.
    maybe if the copyright content owners actually worked with JTV rather than trying to rake them over the legal coals they might get some results.
    if JTV closes dont worry all there are other sites that have chat and are ready to take JTV’s place.

    on a side note i actually think it helps the movie buisness in the way of i watch something i like it and i buy the DVD or box set series.

  • sugar2burn

    Justin TV is quick to shut down porn and ppv (usually just a couple of minutes) but they pretty much let all the copyrighted content in the entertainment and sports section stay up. And many of these channels using copyrighted content are mainstays that have been around for a long time. It goes against myself interest to point this out since I like to use justintv to watch all the copyrighted content but “they’re doing everything they can” argument is bs.

  • PJ

    Why do they have to shut down the site? Hey mr. blogger go look at the gaming part of the site. Hot blooded gaming and several other people have done marathons for charity organizations and have had a lot of people come and support them. They shouldn’t shutdown the whole site just cause some idiots want to broadcast pirated stuff, which JTV is totally against. Thousands of other live stream sites broadcast the same thing everyday weather US or National. What about them they shouldn’t they be sued and shut down also? Why not shut down the biggest torrent sites out their? Why do they have to target only justin.tv which is literally the best broadcasting site I have been too other than yahoo live.

  • http://nagefade.com/?p=708 risk management links of the day: 12.16.09 « wealth travel

    [...] infringing copyright. Getting back to the main story…Now under the threat of legal action, Justin.tv told its side of the story in front of the House Judiciary Committee this morning. ”Justin.tv calls on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which they claim [...]

  • lizzie

    Jtv has a large following that could care less about the games.
    its a great site with staff doing their job..
    stop bitching.

  • mike d

    and ustreams traffic isnt 70/80 percent copyrighted? , i think justin.tv is being singled out here while ustream is getting just as big and is as popular for pirated sports streams as much as justin.tv is ….

  • Jumblies

    How very V7N of you. Please explain what regulation Boo violated so the rest of us don’t make the same mistake. It’s not obvious from Boo’s posts.

  • http://justintv John Abazian

    Justin TV rocks. Go examine how much money did the T G and Citibank snuff away from the taxpayers leave JTV alone.

    Freakin moron.

  • http://technicaldifficulties.com Jezis Kryst supastar

    Go play with your new starcraft expansion packs, squares

  • Christine

    I suppose techcrunch would blame the police for not catching everyone who speeds as well? If you have a business in this global market and don’t realize/accept that piracy is a part of it and could affect your profit margin, don’t start the business. Notice how sports franchises price gouging sports fans doesn’t get addressed as part of this issue. How much is it to sit behind home plate at a yankees game?

  • the streamer

    justin use adsense so the more yu clik the more they earn
    it simple justin say -DONT GET CAUGHT offiially its this dmca garbage
    some broadcasters have vip treatment
    i simply sign in+get banned!!!!
    to use justin yu must remove the channel from the DIRECTORY-that gives you a start-no chat room+no banners,headers or ” qpr v milwall live ” in what are yu broadcasting
    of course if mps knew about money theyd realise no tool can afford a tv let alone 200 quid a month fer sky +more fer espn show+shitsanka-yet prisoners get free sky
    thats why we deserve free tv+justin!!!! i int done shit to no one!!!

  • http://producer.justin.tv/2009/12/response-to-techcrunch-on-work-with.html Justin.tv | Official blog for Justin.tv

    [...] Some of you may have read a post on TechCrunch this morning asking a very important question, How Serious is Justin.tv About Fighting Live Broadcasting Piracy? [...]

  • http://www.real-live-tv.com Gonzalo

    Real Live TV
    is the solution to watch live channels on your PC.

    Compared to other products, Real Live TV gives
    you the best service possible and also 24/7 Assistance

  • http://www.collegedays.in/coll/techie/?p=185 10 Sites and Services That Will Matter in 2010 « Techie

    [...] now working with content owners (like Fox) to assuage concerns, but some have observed that Justin isn’t falling all over itself to ban such live TV streams. Whether or not Justin is forced into such a ban will say a lot about [...]

  • Piracy

    Are you guys serious??

    This is the net, a world not controlled by any rules nor governments. Think about it, why stop at justin.tv? why not mention torrents? why not mention p2p downloads!!!

    To be honest, I find it unfair for them so movie stars to get all that money. Half of them are unintelligent ppl that got lucky !!

    I for one support Justin.tv and supports the internet where everything is free… !!

    I know.. your thinking not everything ! Actually everything is if you know where to go and where to look ..

    Power to the net :)

  • Charles Gaudier

    I’ll just answer this bull$$%$ with something as simple as it is real:

    First there was napster… they killed it ( Thank you Metallica ass$$%$%)

    FIVE more arrived. Kill Justin.tv … go ahead… there’ll be TEN or TWENTY NEW ONES that will take the flag.

    That’s the true reality of the internet. Live it. Like it. Love it. There’s nothing else to do.

  • William

    This sue is also being help by crapy live stream service like “livestream” because they really bad and justin.tv is good and they just want to get rid off justin.tv and i promise if justin.tv go off air livestream one year after will be doing the same thing justin.tv is doing..

    I use to have a channel on justin.tv and i broadcast movies in that but i didnt know it was illigal so three days after my account had been remove so i think justin.tv is doing a great job and i support justin.tv i hope livestream disappear..

    I also have an account with livestream and is just garbage

  • Alex

    This sue is also being help by crapy live stream service like “livestream” because they really bad and justin.tv is good and they just want to get rid off justin.tv and i promise if justin.tv go off air livestream one year after will be doing the same thing justin.tv is doing..

    I use to have a channel on justin.tv and i broadcast movies in that but i didnt know it was illigal so three days after my account had been remove so i think justin.tv is doing a great job and i support justin.tv i hope livestream disappear..

    I also have an account with livestream and is just garbage.

    that is the reason….

  • alex

    i’ll support your post..

  • http://www.nel-web.it/servizi-web/4439/livestream-tolleranza-zero-alla-pirateria.html Livestream, tolleranza zero alla pirateria

    [...] se ben applicate renderanno spazzeranno via una bella fetta di pirateria. Della vicenda Justin.tv ha parlato recentemente pure TechCrunch, marchiando a chiare lettere se davvero il servizio facesse tutto il possibile per combattere la [...]

  • http://www.startasimplebusiness.com/blogging/tips-for-blog-marketing Tips for Blog Marketing

    [...] How Serious Is Justin.tv About Fighting Live Broadcasting Piracy? [...]

  • http://www.louisvuittonhouse.com/ vuitton

    I dare bet 70-80% of their traffic comes from copyrighted videos

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