online fta system rental idea

[i4tas]

I have been able to hook up my fta receiver, vbox, and c-band dish to my slingbox and am able to blindscan, move the dish, and watch FTA shows from anywhere in the world.

Do you think there is a market to supply the FTA experience to people who can't get the equipment but have Internet? I am thinking of charging hourly for my services, I would just have to develop a program to serve up the video and blast the user IR remote code.

Technically this would not be rebroadcasting and the only channels the user would receive are the free FTA signals I preload or they find.

 

[SatinKzo]

Kind of like time share telescopes and observatory model? Seems interesting.

I know over at ustream.tv they do similar things, but if you look on there, you'll notice the majority of the streams they have are illegal since they are rebroadcasting regular TV and sports programming from cable channels and such.

 

[caddata]

......I am thinking of charging hourly for my services......Technically this would not be rebroadcasting......

May take a copyright lawyer to say for sure, but I think if you charged a fee you'd, in fact, be infringing on the station's copyright of their programming.

 

[meinename]

Technically this would not be rebroadcasting and the only channels the user would receive are the free FTA signals I preload or they find.

I am not a lawyer, but I've watched too much good technology go down in flames in the last 10 years for treading on Big Content's perceived territory, despite them lacking any presence.

Now, as far as I know, this would fall under rebroadcasting, especially since you would be charging. Come on, your just taking DVB-S "rebroadcasting it via IPTV through your Slingbox.
Just for yourself is "Fair Use". Charging (makes it commercial) in any form is crosses the fine line in law that opens you up to a world of vague laws that would have the Big Content lawyers all over you, when they catch wind off of it.

At the very least, Any channel you serve up would require you to fill out the cable system form that I keep running into on different channel websites.

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea! Just want to give you fair warning that you may be opening a can of worms you never wanted to face. Keep it on the down low at the very least.

 

[Pepper]

An example of the CYA stuff, it's against the Slingplayer license agreement to use it to access any slingbox other than that personally owned by the user. Not that such language would stop me or any other slingbox owner who wants to "demo" their system to someone.