TechMiso

It apparently takes a special kind of executive to be in upper management in the entertainment industry. It would seem that one of the required job qualifications is a complete and utter lack of any form of technology competence. Every time a new technology company innovates the industry steps in with damage claims, often times issuing cease-and-desist letters or even filing pointless lawsuits against company’s which have found innovating ways to make the entertainment industry’s content more valuable.

The latest knee jerk reaction involves Hulu, the industry supported YouTube alternative which streams commercially supported TV shows and movies produced by NBC, Fox and other studios, and Boxee, a cross-platform media application which displays full-screen versions of videos found on many web-based media sites. The main allure of Boxee is the ability to connect a PC to a TV and stream TV shows, videos and movies from the web to a TV rather than viewing on a computer monitor.

What happened is that Boxee added the ability to display Hulu content through Boxee without explicit permission from Hulu. Since Hulu is industry backed and operated, the geniuses at the studios basically told Hulu they are not to allow Boxee to display Hulu content through the application. At first Boxee complied but then Hulu instituted a technical measure to block Boxee. The enterprising Boxee developers then issued an update to the application, allowing Hulu content to be displayed by making use of Hulu RSS feeds.

Then the game of whack-a-mole began for a few days before Boxee appeared to have given up. Engadget reported today that Hulu has apparently whacked one last mole, this time opting to encrypt their HTML before it is served to the requesting browser.

TunerFreeMCE’s Martin Millmore says Hulu’s HTML is now encrypted at the source and then decrypted using Javascript on the client. That means plugins that parse the Hulu site for links to content won’t work anymore, but man, what a complicated monkey dance for basically no gain — it’s already been broken, and we’re wondering what Hulu’s going to do when Boxee or another company stops playing around and simply builds a full-on WebKit or Gecko browser with a tweaked ID string into their app.

One has to wonder why Hulu is jumping through so many hoops to block Boxee access to the site. While it is quite obvious the studios are behind this boneheaded move, it makes absolutely no business sense whatsoever. Boxee is a useful application which makes the studios own content much more valuable by allowing it to be streamed from the Internet directly in to a movie lovers living room. More eyes on industry content would appear to be a good thing – this seems like the essence of what the industry should be aiming for, no?

More importantly, and the real point I would like to address, is why does Hulu get to decide how a user displays Hulu content? If users desire viewing Hulu content on a 46” LCD with 1080p then why should Hulu care? Just because the content is being downloaded from Hulu via Boxee rather than a traditional web browser should not make a difference. So long as the content is not being used maliciously, and since Hulu offers the content free of charge and Boxee is not breaking any laws, then what is the difference if the content is played in a Firefox tab or on a TV screen with an application which makes it easier to do so?

The real rub is this – it is only a matter of time before Boxee merely embeds WebKit or Gecko, the Safari and Firefox rendering engines, in to the application. Doing so ends up rendering pointless every whack-a-mole move Hulu has made to date. By what effectively amounts to using a browser to display Hulu content from within Boxee, no matter what Hulu does from this point forward there is no more blocking Boxee without side effects to users visiting the site in their browser.

There should be no need for this idiotic dance – Boxee should be allowed to access Hulu content without fear of having to reengineer the application every other day. The extraordinary steps Hulu is taking to try and block Boxee is stupid, short-sighted and a complete waste of resources.

The best solution would be for Hulu to embrace Boxee, negating any tit-for-tat games. Consumers want to view Hulu content on their TV so why would the industry want to stop people from viewing their content? It is so basic that it is hard to fathom industry executives sitting in a boardroom, discussing the ways to make their content less valuable.

When the entertainment industry finally comes to its senses and realizes people want to view their content but in ways consumers desire we will all be better off. It will require the industry to embrace a consumer-oriented mindset, so expect this change to happen the moment those Iraqi WMD’s are located.