Why is Hulu blocking boxee users from watching Hulu video on boxee

Hulu's 'content partners' just made a decision for me: run BitTorrent for 10 minutes to download a full 720p episode of 24 instead of watching it on Hulu. On Hulu it was lower quality but was pretty damn easy to control from the couch, on demand. And Hulu is selling ads... on BitTorrent they don't make a cent.

Great job old media!

Wasn't the whole point of Hulu to provide people with a legal alternative to file sharing of content via the likes of BitTorrent? Crap like this is just going to send people back to the old way of doing things and the ones that will be most screwed will be NBC and Fox.

Fortunately for Boxee users, there's still plenty of great content available from other sourcees. As long as they don't stupidly follow Hulu's lead, they'll be the ones that benefit the most from this decision and will be collecting the ad revenue off of us instead of Hulu.

Taking off Hulu is absolutely retarded! The ads are there, so what's the problem?

I will just hook up my computer to my television and watch Hulu that way until this is resolved...having it on the Apple TV was nice though. Either that, or we take other actions, like cancel our cable service...it's not like Hulu was perfect, but it was a really nice feature!

I really want to know exactly the reasoning behind this. I know it's not boxee's fault and mostly not Hulu's either. I just want to know, why does it matter considering that the ads are still displayed within boxee during a show playing. Hulu's logo and content is also prominently displayed. Whoever told Hulu to enforce this I don't think realized the massive backlash this was going to cause.

Why. That's all I want to know.

I don't think anyone should give them the satisfaction of saying we'll just hook up our computer to watch them. Apparently thats what they want, I'd rather just quietly look for other sources for my viewing pleasure. They will get the point when the hits fall off, as well as the advertisers.

Yeah maybe if they notice they are losing way more money as a result of this they will reconsider...

Or if boxee is bought out and money becomes a factor Hulu will become available again.

This is because content providers are run by oldtimers who not only think that the Internet is a series of tubes, but are also scared by what this Internet thing could mean for ad revenues from cable subscriptions.
Wake up folks, it is 2009, not 1999!

Old timers? I'm probably older than you can believe, the Old Timers put this 'Internet Thing 'together, 'tubes' and all sonny. Scared? Tell your father that, and he'll tell you that most have survived a war or two, Scared? I don't think so! and If you can't remember back further than 1999, you can put your opinion where the sun don't shine!!!

I sincerely believe this IS going to drive people back to torrenting things. Hulu's option to stream "higher-def" stuff was an amazing feature. But now with this decision, it's going to drive people to go torrent the 720p versions of the show, with no advertisements in it at all. This is severly going to hurt Huly and Boxee alike. I think the big media wigs need to take a step back and seriously evaluate the future of their companies. Cable broadcasts are NOT going to be around forever, and they're potentially killing an early start to their extremely successful futures....

They may as well be aliens, as much as they’re alienating their own viewers. As has been said before, there’s no difference between viewing via Boxee or on their website, as their precious ads are embedded in the video player itself. Boxee just brings more eyeballs to the party, in most cases putting TV shows where they ought to be... on the TV.

This is not Boxee or Hulu's fault, but the studios.

And we all know that they understand only a single form of protest: Loosing money.

On the other hand, they will probably use this as justification for saying:

"See! Those darn communist terrorist pirates are costing us a billion trillion gazillion dollars!"

All this "cracking down" does is make content creators realize they don't need big television networks or cable operators anymore. The producers of Lost and other shows could very well just skip that whole nonsense and go direct to people via the internet and sell their own ads. There is no lack of ad platforms (with better targeting and trackability than anything the networks offer) to handle that end.

My point is, don't be like the RIAA, see the writing on the wall and be proactive, not punish your end consumers. You can't pick up your ball and go home, because people are just going to play a different game that doesn't require your old tired balls.

Boxee, will you please just open source what part of the code base handled this so that your work did not go to waste? Play nice and remove it, but some innocent open sourcing never hurt anyone.

This is a bad move on Hulu's part. I've watched more TV ads on Hulu via Boxee than I have in years on regular TV or any other medium.

That's a damn good point. If I DVR a show, I fast forward ALL the ads. If I watch on Hulu via Boxee, I watch ALL the ads. If I don't have Hulu on Boxee, I am just not watching your shows. Do the math, less distribution of Hulu content = less ad impressions, less ad impressions = less money. This is a serious network executive FAIL. Someone needs to give these guys a little cardboard box and tell them to pack their stuff, you're done.

This decision makes no sense on the part of Hulu/NBC/Fox. From their perspective, Boxee should be seen as nothing more than another web browser. Just like Internet Explorer or Firefox, Boxee displays Hulu content unfiltered--with ads, no less. The only thing I can figure is that Hulu is planning to clutter up their currently beautiful site with text and display ads in addition to the streaming video, and they think that Boxee's interface will strip out those ads.

Boxee Just prevented 60 million Xbox owners from watching their ads.

Does not seem like a good business move to me.

1.) Why would i want to ever watch HULU on my computer, when I have a nice flat screen TV?

2.) Boxee made this possible with my apple TV. Boxee was the reason why i purchased an apple TV.

3.)I will probably end up downloading bittorents of the shows I usually steam on hulu via boxee, rather than sitting at my computer to watch them.

4.) Hulu, you dropped the ball on this one.

Hulu folks: You should --at the very least-- explain why you have decided to limit one platform over all others. After all you are walking out on customers that were using your services and did nothing to violate the terms of use. Except watch your shows on a big screen with large speakers. Damn kids!

Goodbye Hulu. I can go watch somebody else's commercials or better yet watch Fox and NBC without any commercials at all.

You know it should not be too hard to add a web browser to Boxee? Then what?

Do big companies LIKE shafting common people like us? What the hell is wrong with them, we still watch ads on the streamed content via Hulu and I even tell my friends about it if I think it's worthwhile. I understand this isn't Hulu's fault, but come on.

I was thinking of watching some Burn Notice on Hulu. Instead I am going to go and torrent it.

Hulu replacement

http://ted.nu/

Enjoy.