

Ask HN: How is justin.tv legal? - oldmanstan

I've heard that there's all kinds of sports streamed live on it, including UFC matches.<p>How is this not illegal? Are they going to get shut down anytime soon?
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erikano
[http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-justintv-kills-some-
liv...](http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-justintv-kills-some-live-
football-streams-under-pressure-from-fa-sky-se/) \- “Justin.tv has grown from
a place where one guy broadcasted his life, to a place where people all over
the world broadcast and watch millions of live videos. Justin.tv is 100
percent DMCA-compliant and we promptly respond to all DMCA takedown requests.”

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gallerytungsten
Try watching an NFL game on justin.tv. Sure, you can find one. But the
majority of the links are spam and attempts to get you to sign up at some
other streaming site. When you do actually manage to find a game, it will
often stop without warning. So yes, they apparently do respond pretty promptly
to DMCA takedown requests.

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code_duck
Youtube, according to court documents, was well aware that by far the majority
of their early traffic was related to unlicensed copyrighted material. They
did fine and I"m sure as long as justin.tv seems responsive to claims, they
will do fine as well.

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mhansen
They're a safe harbour under the DMCA, as long as they respond to all takedown
requests. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmca>

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JimmyL
It's not legal - UFC is going after them (and Ustream) hard for broadcasting
their streams (see [http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=mmajunkie-UFC_anti-
pir...](http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=mmajunkie-UFC_anti-
piracy_Justin.tv_Ustream), among others).

DMCA says that Justin.tv is in the clear so long as they follow take-down
requests - their page about it is <http://www.justin.tv/user/dmca>. In a nice
turn, they explain about counter-notifications (what you can file if someone
has sent you a DMCA take-down that you feel is incorrect) with the same
precision and prominence, and suggest that they will forward take-downs to
Chilling Effects for good measure.

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jsz0
I think it's still under the radar for the most part. I suppose as long as the
big sports leagues aren't pushing the issue justin.tv has no reason to
aggressively go after people streaming copyrighted material. There are
services like Sopcast and TVU that specialize in live sports piracy who don't
seem to be getting any attention from the big sports leagues either.

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coryl
The same way youtube is legal?

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qsm
If they get youtube like popularity one day expect a horde of lawyers at their
door. One thing is for sure though justintv would be deserted without the
illegal streams.

