Boxee asked to remove Hulu
According to a boxee blog entry, Hulu will no longer be supported. From the post: 'two weeks ago Hulu called and told us their content partners were asking them to remove Hulu from boxee. We tried (many times) to plead the case for keeping Hulu on Boxee, but on Friday of this week, in good faith, we will be removing it. you can see their blog post about the issues they are facing.' Reading the Hulu blog post, the only 'issue' I see facing Hulu is that content providers have (once again) shot themselves in the foot, switching off a media conduit they should have been promoting.
The secret to understanding why Hulu's "content providers" -- and boy do they love being called that -- have instructed Hulu to block Boxee users from their "content" -- again, not what they would call it -- isn't some big secret. In fact, it was broadcast during the Superbowl, in Hulu's excellent Superbowl ad.
Emphasis added: portable computing devices. Not to your TV -- from your TV. To your dumb-ass laptop, you smelly, hairy, friendless, gamer-freak nerd. (Sorry, I hate to talk about you that way, but that's how they think of the Internet. I think you smell great.) To your TV is something completely different, and from the "content providers'" point of view, completely wrong. Aren't Apple and Tivo and YouTube bad enough as it is?
Boxee was featured in an awesome New York Times article one month ago, with a picture of their product on a big-screen TV, and Hulu's logo clearly visible in the upper right corner. I can almost hear some lawyer somewhere in Hollywood screaming, "I thought Hulu was a WEB SITE! I do NOT see a WEB BROWSER in this PHOTOGRAPH!" at the sight of it. Boxee's blog post on the controversy says they heard from Hulu about this two weeks ago; I'd bet Hulu heard from that lawyer two weeks before that -- the morning the article appeared. Those calls are fun.
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