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Sling Wants Network Buy-In for TV-on-the-Web System
An article by Fortune's Stephanie Mehta examines Sling Media's new service "Clip+Sling", which allows users to easily take portions of television programming and post them onto the Internet. The company is looking to team up with networks and give them a share of the ad revenue generated from these clips.
Former MTV exec Jason Hirschhorn, who now runs Sling's entertainment group, reasons with potential partners that people are going to post portions of television shows to the Web anyway, so why not stop calling it piracy and monetize it.
Hirschhorn is asking the TV world to take a big leap of faith. He needs media companies essentially to provide air cover for a technology that poses some interesting intellectual property and legal issues. In meetings, Hirschhorn says, he acknowledges those concerns up front: "Your business development people, your lawyers, they're all going to want do a number on me," he tells media honchos. "And they'll be right."
Among the potential worries: How to compensate the artists creating the content that gets clipped, and how to handle content that a network airs, but doesn't own.
Clip+Sling Interview
http://www.slingcommunity.com/article/18342/Jason-Hirschhorn-Talks-Clip-Sling---Changing-How-Big-Media-Thinks/?src=111
Clip+Sling Interview
<a href="http://www.slingcommunity.com/article/18342/Jason-Hirschhorn-Talks-Clip-Sling---Changing-How-Big-Media-Thinks/?src=111">http://www.slingcommunity.com/article/18342/Jason-Hirschhorn-Talks-Clip-Sling---Changing-How-Big-Media-Thinks/</a>