Red Lasso Is Going Bye Bye

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

As someone who basically makes a living putting up videos on the Internet it's tough to see such a tool as Red Lasso go away. Reuters reports that Red Lasso has broken numerous copyright laws and has been served a cease and desist....

NEW YORK (Reuters) - NBC, CBS, and Fox charged on Tuesday that Redlasso, a closely-held website operator, has violated copyright laws by streaming video clips of their news, sports and television shows without permission.

In a letter, lawyers for CBS Corp, General Electric's NBC, News Corp's Fox and Allbritton Communications Co, a TV station owner, said Redlasso has broken state and federal laws while causing the companies "serious and irreparable harm."

They demanded Redlasso stop reproducing, distributing or displaying the broadcasts.

Redlasso, in a statement, said it is reviewing the letter and expects to respond shortly.
Basically the idea behind it was that Red Lasso had permission from the networks and shared supposed "revenue" with them. Apparently that idea is completely false and without any ads embedded, pretty impossible. To tell you the truth, it was f'ing annoying to work with and would occasionally cause browsers to crash. I don't think I'm really going to miss it.

NBC, CBS, Fox say Redlasso breaking copyright laws (Reuters)
The Man Is Cracking Down on Redlasso (Mister Irrelevant)

Posted by Awful Announcing- at 1:34 PM

13 Comments:

Suprised it didn't happen sooner to be honest. But I will miss it, it was nice to find clips quickly without waiting for someone else to get it.

Anonymous said...
May 21, 2008, 1:54:00 PM  

Will this cause an actual decrease in the amount of videos you'll be able to post on the blog, or does it just mean that more videos will be posted through YouTube and other sources?

Jay said...
May 21, 2008, 1:55:00 PM  

Other sources Jay. I would really only use Red Lasso when I missed something and it was really needed. Nothing should change here.

May 21, 2008, 2:10:00 PM  

Good riddance. I've never once come across a Red Lasso video that worked properly for me.

twoeightnine said...
May 21, 2008, 2:11:00 PM  

"serious and irreparable harm."

Bullshit. These corporations are doing nothing more than pulling a Lars Ulrich on RedLasso. That extra 2 cents they want won't make a damn difference in the long run.
Granted, I won't lose any sleep over this, but it's still bullshit.

UnHoly Diver said...
May 21, 2008, 2:48:00 PM  

I do not like to use anything besides Youtube. If I have more than 1 different viewer on the screen it slows everything down for me.

Lasso was the worst anyways. Good Bye :-)

Anonymous said...
May 21, 2008, 3:01:00 PM  

Redlasso never claimed to have permission, but rather were in talks (and obviously continued talks) with the content owners. This is simply a draconian attempt to stop RedLasso before they become too big.

Also, simply upgrading to Flash 9 usually fixes all of the problems with their player based on my experience. RedLasso streams content (unlike YouTube which uses progressive download) in order to protect content from being copied.

Anonymous said...
May 21, 2008, 3:08:00 PM  

Lasso sucked, their vids never worked.

GMoney said...
May 21, 2008, 4:03:00 PM  

For someone who lives up here in CA-NA-DA and does not have access to ESPN, Ill miss watching some of the shows like SPORTSCENTER and Baseball Tonight but i guess its fine thats its going the way of Crystal Pepsi

Anonymous said...
May 21, 2008, 4:23:00 PM  

I signed up for it to try and watch the videos. First off, it took like three weeks from the time I signed up to the time I was confirmed and allowed to be a member.

Second, the videos didn't work half the time.

Third, I never was able to sign in half the time.

In a way, good riddance

The Editor said...
May 21, 2008, 4:45:00 PM  

Always worked fine for me and I'm gonna miss it. I was going to use it to watch a bunch of shows next year when I'm off at college but now I gotta find something else.

Nyjer Please said...
May 21, 2008, 7:01:00 PM  

Only used it a few times, but always crashed.

May 22, 2008, 8:53:00 AM  

gonna miss it, enjoyed seeing baseball games i couldnt get...website is still there though

Anonymous said...
May 23, 2008, 12:31:00 AM  

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