As gaming consoles continue to become video streaming hubs, it follows that pay-TV operators are looking to turn the tables a bit and deliver high-end video games via the proverbial cloud. AT&T, Cox Communications Inc., Verizon and Time Warner Cable Inc. are among the major service providers that are developing strategies to stream gaming titles directly to customers and amp up the competition among game console makers, Bloomberg reports, noting that trials are expected to start later this year, with initial deployments to follow in 2013.
Cablevision Systems Corp. is supporting the broadcasters in their legal fight against Aereo Inc., claiming that the upstart service, which delivers over-the-air TV broadcasts to consumers via the Internet alongside a network-based DVR, violates copyright laws, notes The Los Angeles Times, citing a Cablevision amicus brief filed late last week. Aereo is basing its defense partly on the legal basis of Cablevision's implementation of a network DVR, but Cablevision argued that a "critical legal difference is that Cablevision pays statutory licensing and retransmission content fees for the content it retransmits, while Aereo does not." Barry Diller-backed Aereo says it charges customers for an infrastructure, but isn't subject to retrans fees because it's relying on TV content that's available for free over-the-air. Aereo's service currently is only offered in New York City. (See Diller's Aereo Under Legal Attack, Does Aereo Have a DVR Precedent? and Diller Says Aereo Doesn't Sell Content.)
Netflix Inc.'s video vault has thinned a bit after dropping about 800 hours of relatively new content from A&E Networks, including episodes from popular series such as Pawn Stars and Ice Road Truckers, reports Variety, noting that the streaming video hub still carries about 300 hours of older fare from the A&E library.
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