Sometime last year, we discovered the King Of Prussia-based web 2.0 startup RedLasso, and thought, “Finally.” RedLasso does for TV on the Web what somehow, some way, broadcast television has not been able to do for itself. The site pulls a feed and streams the gamut of major TV networks and affiliates, as well as cable staples like CNN, E!, and Comedy Central, whereupon the user can go on to the site and “clip” whatever they’d like to use and embed onto their own site. It has added a great new level to writing about TV on the web, sure, but nobody was surprised when the networks slapped RedLasso with a cease and desist letter last week. And so the games have begun. After the jump, we catch up with RedLasso President Kevin O’Kane, who ironically, before this came along was the VP/GM of UPN 57. Who’d a thunk it?

So, I guess for the uninitiated, tell me what RedLasso does, and what your stance is on the legality of that?

Redlasso is the “On-Line Media Center for Bloggers.” We index television and radio feeds from around the country and we allow the user to search the media by keyoword and create embeddable clips that they can then post on their blogs or websites. Allowing the blogger to write about the post and provide commentary about the media. It’s the news about news.
Before I answer the question of legality, let me say very clearly that Redlasso respects intellectual property rights and has the highest regard for the networks and their concerns.

That makes one of us. But do go on.

It should also be noted that Redlasso is not trying to build a business on based on things like “Fair Use” and other legal defences, instead… we are trying to build a business based on mutually benificial relationships with the networks and the bloggers. Fair Use and other legal defenses are things we have considered only to insure that Redlasso is not doing anything wrong prior to the cooperative relationships are put in place… having said that, of course we believe what we are doing is legal or we wouldnt be doing it.

OK, fair enough. All that being said, on what grounds did the networks smack you guys last week?

I know that many folks on the content owners side of things have a different viewpoint on this, and with fiar use, you never know for sure until a court decides and all appeals are exhausted. We’ve gotten advice on this from a number of lawyers and fair use experts a top law schools and we are comfortable with our legal position. As for the grounds… you saw the C&D right? Beyond what was in the C&D, it would just be speculaiton on our part.

Yep. But it says a lot about the fading relevance of the networks, though, that while they’re talking C&D, you’re talking partnership. What would the most likely arrangement be between you guys and the network, if one were to be made?

Currently, the networks have no means of monitizing content usage by bloggers. Redlasso provides that means (and Redlasso has continually expressed to the networks its desire to share revenue with them when the site begins to generate revenue) If Redlasso is driven out of business, bloggers will continue to use the methods (such as YouTube) that they used before Redlasso and that provide no monetization opportunity for the networks and no protection against useage that Redlasso prohibits. In other words, Redlasso is the solution, not the problem. It is the solution to a VERY real and growing problem of untracebale, unmonitziable video on the web. We want partnerships with the content owners and the bloggers to share revenue.

You have some points there, but wouldn’t the solution be, for the networks, do basically do all their own clipping and embedding and make that stuff available on their own sites? MTV is already doing a lot of this…

They could, and should do that too… but we do believe that the networks don’t want to get into the business of compensating bloggers for their usage. We act as a necessary settlement layer bewteen the networks and the blogging community. And we believe that the bloggers prefer to have one centralized place where they can access and compare coverage of any given news item. It’s about being able to find what they want and when they want it, and not having only select peices of content made available to them by the networks. Additionally…. To the people that run those sites, and the blog arms of those sites, like VH1’s Best Week Ever, for example; they can have access to Redlasso tool to enhace the user experience for their sites as well. A real cross pollination of content
and, by the way…. they are already doing that.

Well, I’m sold, since this is what I do every day and I can tell you, RedLasso is a great resource. However, the blog side digging it doesn’t mean the network side will. What’s the worst case scenario for you guys here? What’s the worst that can happen and how long could the back and forth drag out?

Here at Redlasso… we find that we sleep much better here focusing on the positive. Something this right, can’t be wrong. We would prefer to leave it to others to contemplate the worst case scenario.

You know, it’s a funny thing. We feel the same way about Philebrity. And bacon vodka. Thanks for your time, and best of luck!

Read more Philebrity interviews here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 3:27 pm.