An advertising funded broadband service which only launched fully at the beginning of January, has already been forced to suspend its services after complaints from British broadcasters forced its hosting company to pull the plug.
TVCatchup was/is a service which offers users the chance to record any TV show from 12 of the 19 free-to-air channels in the UK, which can then be watched online at a later date, and shared with other registered members.
After completing a test run last year with 5,000 beta testers, the site went fully live on January 1st of this year, and offered users the chance to “Never miss a show again”. The only problem is, right from its inception, the legality of such a service was called in to question.
TVCatchup Closed For Business
The site has now been forced to close, and visitors to TVCatchup.com now get the following message:
Dear Member
In recent days, TVCatchup has become aware of the Broadcaster’s (BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five) increasing concerns over the free personal recording functionality that this website offers.
On 15th February, our hosting was terminated without warning and we presume this was at the request of such Broadcasters.
Given that this will no doubt happen again, TVCatchup has therefore voluntarily suspended its services whilst the concerns of the Broadcasters are addressed.
We apologise to all for this temporary interruption to service.
This page will provide a service update as matters progress.
British broadcasters BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Channel Five, have all spent millions of pounds in trying to get their own catch up services launched and operational, and so seeing a private site come in and steal the limelight immediately caused concern.
High Profile Advertisements
The site was completely free to use, and made profits instead by high profile advertising deals made in association with 24/7 Real Media. Companies including Renault, Hallmark, and the FX channel had already had banner and video ads on the site.
The service used a TV schedule, which registered visitors could use to make recordings of certain television programmes. These would then be encoded as flash video to be streamed directly from the site. There was even a series link option making a whole series record with just one button press.
Putting Broadcasters Attempts To Shame
The ease of use of the service, and veritable scope of content available made the service a beacon for dissatisfied British TV viewers, who aren’t happy with the limitations from the broadcasters own services.
The BBC wouldn’t reveal how they were pursuing the site and its owners, but a spokesman did tell The Guardian:
“We are concerned about the unauthorised commercial exploitation of our rights, and those of our contributors, by TVCatchup.”
“The BBC together with the other UK terrestrial broadcasters, ITV, Channel 4 and Five are currently jointly in correspondence with TV Catchup, and we have no further comment to make at this stage.”
The BBC’s iPlayer has actually been very successful since its relaunch over Christmas, so surely that proves there’s room for more than one such service on the Internet?
Conclusions
So is the service legal or not? And did it deserve to be suspended? Adam Smith, the founder of TVCatchup has always maintained the site is legal thanks to time-shifting exemptions in copyright law, although they only apply to domestic, and not commercial service such as this.
What’s clear is that British broadcasters are steadfastly trying to protect their content at all costs, and with the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV set to launch their joint service dubbed Kangaroo soon, they will go to great lengths to rid the web of any legally dubious competitors.
