Redlasso, a video site that allowed bloggers to take snippets of TV shows to embed on their sites, has shut down this side of the business due to pressure from the Fox, CBS, and NBC television networks.
The trio sent cease and desist letters to the company back in May demanding an immediate ceasing of all copyright infringements. When this was ignored, a lawsuit was filed, and Redlasso has now backed down afraid to fight over issues of the service being legal under ‘fair use‘.
Bloggers Loved It, TV Networks Hated It
Redlasso was a hugely popular service with the 20,000 odd bloggers who used it, but unfortunately, it was wasn’t appreciated by TV channels such as ESPN, Fox News, and CNN who prefer to have full control of their content ignoring the potential for increased exposure that the Redlasso service provided them.
The site offered recorded feeds of these channels, of which the bloggers could then clip portions of no longer than ten minutes in length, to embed on their websites. The videos appeared on a number of high-profile news, and celebrity gossip blogs.
The content was all served from Redlasso’s servers, but without a legal license being sought for any of it, there was always going to be trouble, and today, the shit hit the fan.
TV Networks Fighting Back
While Redlasso still maintains it acted within the law, with all clips being subject to the rules governing fair use, the fact that it has shut up shop just days after the lawsuit was filed, shows that it didn’t trust the law enough to go to court. Is it any surprise given rights holders can claim fair use is even infringing?
With sites like Hulu now offering fully legal ways of watching network programming on the Web, the networks aren’t going to allow any legally-dubious site such as this to exist. It’s a shame to see it go, but in the days of awkward copyright law and short sighted rights holders afraid it was always going to happen.
