When Hulu first launched in late October, it received praise from all quarters, and since then, everyone has either begged, borrowed or stolen for an invitation to use the service.
Hulu is a joint venture between NBC and News Corporation, currently in private beta, which offers network content from both of them, to anyone with an Internet connection.
Some of the shows featured on the site can be embedded elsewhere, which has prompted the aptly named OPENhulu, a new copycat site which offers some of the same content as Hulu, but without the need for an invite.
Why Didn’t I Think Of That?
The rip off is the brainchild of Matt Schlicht, who simply figured why not take the embeddable content, stick it on his own clone site, and try to offer his own version.
It’s one of those ideas that is so simple, we are all now sat there wondering why we didn’t think of it first. And hoping too, as with adverts, and an already impressive stream of traffic, it could be a good earner.
Ah, but wait, isn’t this terribly illegal, and also morally corrupt? Well, some would argue that it is, but who is actually losing in all of this?
Winners All Round?
The networks were already offering these particular shows as embedded videos anyway, which kind of means they have given permission for them to be shared around the Internet to non-Hulu users.
And as the original advertising remains in place on each individual video, the networks also don’t lose any revenue. Everyone is a winner.
That’s not to say that I don’t believe that Schlicht should expect to find a cease and desist letter on his doorstep in the very near future, because we all know it’s going to happen.
Conclusions
The only possible problem I can see with this is that it will likely put the networks off from offering more of the Hulu accessed shows as embeddable videos, which is a shame.
The website isn’t great yet, but it does it’s job, and I’m going to enjoy the videos I can while I can. Who wants in on a sweepstake over when the site gets taken down?
[OPENhulu]
