The same New York District Court judge that forced a temporary shutdown of Locast, which streamed over the air broadcasts inside their communities of service, has dealt what is likely a final death blow against the non-profit group, issuing a permanent injunction that forbids the service from operating.

Judge Louis L. Stanton signed the two-page permanent injunction on Wednesday:

ORDERED that, Defendants, along with their officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys and other persons who are in active concert or participation with Defendants or the officers, agents, servants, employees, or attorneys (if they receive actual notice pursuant to Rule 65 (d) (2) of the Federal Rules of Civil procedure) are permanently restrained and enjoined from operating Locast.

Two weeks earlier, Judge Stanton found Locast’s arguments that it was operating legally under an exemption to the Copyright Act to be uncompelling. Locast had argued it was operating a translator service on a not-for-profit basis, offering TV stations improved coverage within their broadcast service area at no charge to station owners or viewers. But Judge Stanton found Locast was nagging viewers with persistent requests for donations, interrupting the signal every 15 minutes for those who did not contribute at least $5 a month. In his mind, that made Locast a de facto subscription service, and an apparently profitable one, collecting at least $2 million more than it needed to operate the service in the past year.

Stanton ruled Locast’s profits disqualified the service from being considered exempt from the Copyright Act, and rejected Locast’s arguments that as a translator service, it did not need the permission of local stations to stream their signals.

Locast earlier predicted it planned to appeal. Unless it does and wins an appeal ruling in its favor, the three-year old service will remain permanently closed down.

STIRR, Sinclair Broadcast Group’s new free-to-stream, advertiser-supported service, this week added Dan Abram’s Law and Crime Network to a growing lineup of second-tier networks airing off-network shows, YouTube videos, movies, oddities like drone footage, and local news content produced by Sinclair-owned television stations around the country.

As of today, STIRR features 29 streaming linear TV networks, most you’ve never heard of before. The primary draw for most will be access to live streaming news from dozens of Sinclair stations around the country. STIRR asks users to pre-select the city and station nearest them, which then allows access to STIRR CITY, a channel that carries complete coverage of local news and features produced by that Sinclair station. In between live newscasts, the channel features a small handful of off-network shows like Highway to Heaven (commercial free for some reason) and live carriage of Cheddar, a business news network. Users can choose and change any Sinclair station they like anytime, useful during breaking news stories several cities away.

Although STIRR incorporates plenty of its cohesive platform branding messages across its lineup, it is clear most of the included networks are a motley crew of independent thrown-off-cable misfits, low-budget oddities that feature little more than drone footage or a queue of YouTube videos, and several digital subnets you probably have encountered on over the air channels. Most of the latter air old off-network shows from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, similar to Me TV. But none seems compelling enough to replace a cable TV or streaming TV subscription.

STIRR is only a few months old, and lineup additions and changes are forthcoming as the service grows to around 50 live/linear TV channels by the end of 2019. Streaming quality is good, but older programs show their age. Sinclair likely bought a range of cheap syndicated series to scatter across its own STIRR-branded channels, and many inexplicably run without commercials, which means viewers are often treated to several minutes of “we’ll be right back” billboards between shows. Sinclair presumably would like to sell its own advertising on the service, but so far the vast majority of commercials are unpaid promos for different STIRR shows and channels.

A rudimentary program guide offers viewers the titles of shows, but few descriptions. STIRR does not offer a record option at this time.

Current STIRR Lineup

1. STIRR CITY
2. Stadium
3. Cheddar News
4. Law & Crime Trial Network
5. Futurism
6. Dust
7. Comet
8. Charge!
9. CONtv
10. Buzzr
11. Dove Channel
12. Shout TV
13. Pet Collective
14. TBD
15. FailArmy
16. The T from The Tennis Channel
17. WPT – World Poker Tour
18. STIRR Sports
19. Outdoor America
20. STIRR Life
21. BigLife TV
22. GustoTV
23. MovieMix
24. STIRR Movies
25. Gravitas Movies
26. Mobcrush
27. ESR eSports Channel
28. NASA TV
29. SOAR (Drone Footage)

STIRR is available from iOS and Android apps, on Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and Roku, and on desktops through the STIRR website.

A company is testing a solution to video subscription password abuse that will register each device authorized to access streaming video, while giving customers a Forever Login, ending the need to regularly re-enter usernames and passwords to watch.

Synacor is responding to growing concerns from some in the cable industry that subscription television password sharing is allowing unauthorized access to content viewers did not pay to view. The new system is an attempt to upgrade the authenticated TV Everywhere experience to reduce subscriber inconvenience while locking down the number of concurrent devices allowed to view online content.

Currently, when a customer accesses subscription-required content online, they are asked to select their TV provider and then enter their assigned username and password to verify they are a current subscriber to a video package that includes that network. Once authenticated, the network’s website controls how long user credentials are kept before they must be re-entered, as well as how many concurrent viewing sessions from multiple family members are permitted.

TV Everywhere services were originally designed to allow the subscriber and anyone else living within the home to be able to access networks like CNN, HBO, ESPN, and others on portable devices in-home and while on the go. But many customers also share their user credentials with extended family members and friends who do not live at the same address. Unauthorized third parties also occasionally obtain user credentials through brute force hacking and sell them on the black market. The subscriber usually only discovers a security problem with their account when they reach the concurrent viewing limit, which displays as an on-screen message stating the maximum number of viewers are already watching content through a subscription and at least one must disconnect before a new stream can be viewed.

Cable company executives hold a variety of opinions about the seriousness of password sharing. Altice and Comcast, and programmers like Time Warner, Inc., which owns HBO and Cinemax, have not shown much concern about the practice, but Charter/Spectrum executives have, and are leading the charge to lock down subscriber authentication.

Synacor’s new system introduces a new layer of cable company-defined limits on streaming: registering each device allowed to view content as well as checking how many people are attempting to stream content simultaneously.

Under the new system, a customer will be permitted to register a limited number of “trusted devices” allowed access to streamed video content. A cable company, for example, could limit subscribers to two smartphones, one tablet, and one smart/internet-enabled TV or Roku box. Even if the subscriber has other devices, they would have to unregister an existing device before being allowed to register a new one. Additionally, a cable operator could limit concurrent streams to two or three, either per network or per account, regardless of what networks are being watched. That would mean, in one example, a family of four would designate a maximum of five “trusted devices” and be allowed to watch up to three concurrent streams per account. “Bill” could watch ESPN on the bedroom television, “Mary” could watch a murder-mystery on the Hallmark Channel on her tablet on the patio, and “Dylan” could watch a movie on HBO on his phone at the same time. But if “Sara” decided to watch a show on Lifetime on her phone, the system would block the request.

In the past, it was likely all four family members could watch concurrent streams of their shows on virtually any device they like, and they could also share login credentials with “Jeff” — a family member at college, who in turn shared his username and password with the other people living in his dorm room — exactly the kind of thing Charter CEO Thomas Rutledge would like to stop.

Synacor claims its new system is still a positive for consumers because it allows user credentials to be stored in perpetuity, ending the need for frequent logins to re-verify and re-authenticate one’s account, regardless of where they are. Synacor’s executive director of identity services, John Kavanagh, suggests it is a win-win for companies and consumers.

“They wanted to deliver the same user experience benefit…and we brought the trust along with it with device registration,” Kavanagh said. “The end-user experience of home-based authentication really set a high bar. They wanted to take that high bar and extend it elsewhere.”

But many subscribers, especially those with larger families, are likely to balk at the new restrictions, especially if cable operators offer to ease them in return for additional fees. The process of registering devices is also likely to be seen as cumbersome by those not technically proficient, as well as those who own a large assortment of electronic devices.

Multichannel News reports a recent study from Hub Research and CTAM that monitors the TV Everywhere market surveyed 3,491 TV subscribers who watch at least five hours of television a week and discovered 28% claimed that password sharing with friends and family members was okay and permitted by their provider, although generally it is not. Another 33% believed password sharing was allowed for family members who have since moved out of the family home and live elsewhere. No provider authorizes such viewing.

The cable industry generally does not mind password sharing for family members who are traveling or attending school and live outside of the home in a dorm, or watching on a device that belongs to a friend. They do mind if that friend keeps the user credentials and watches programming without their own subscription.

Kavanagh claims the biggest concern is “commercial-level” black market sales of user credentials to third parties who have no relationship to the account owner.

“Once we’re able to register that device securely as part of the sign-in flow, we then connect that with a complete list of devices that have been used with a given subscription,” Kavanagh said. “We not only expose that master list to the end user for their own benefit on things that might be suspicious, but on the operator side, it gives them a depth of awareness they haven’t had before. It allows them to have a fine instrument to enforce their business rules and security policies.”

Both customers and cable operators can see who is currently accessing content using their account and cancel authorization for device(s) they no longer own, lost, or are being used by those who do not have an association with the account holder at all.

The new system is being introduced on an experimental basis to some current customers, starting with Service Electric Cablevision. It is likely similar rollouts will happen with Synacor’s other clients, which include:

• Streaming Services: Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, HBO
• Telco TV: AT&T, Cincinnati Bell, Verizon, Windstream, CenturyLink
• Fiber/Cable TV: WOW!, Armstrong Cable, Atlantic Broadband, Cable One, Mediacom, GCI, Hotwire Communications, Charter/Spectrum, Grande Communications

[flv]http://phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Are Streaming Companies a Threat to Cable 9-21-15.flv[/flv]

Jeffrey Tambor and Jill Soloway delivered Amazon.com Inc. its first major Emmy awards for the show “Transparent,” as the online retailer went toe-to-toe with Time Warner Inc.’s HBO, highlighting the growing competition between video streaming services vs. traditional cable television. Berenberg Senior Media Analyst Sarah Simon discusses with Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua on “The Pulse.” (4:26)

The average Netflix subscriber now watches 93 minutes of online video a day just from Netflix, and that adds up to 45GB of usage on average a month.

The Diffusion Group released that estimate in a new 35-page report (priced at $2,495) based on streaming data released by Netflix, and it shows a 350 percent increase in viewing over the last ten quarters, adding up to more than seven billion streaming hours in the last quarter alone.

Consumers with usage-limited broadband accounts will find online video viewing increasingly eating away at viewing allowances, but when 4K HD video arrives in the not too distant future, usage caps of 300-500GB a month will seem paltry. That new video format consumes up to 7GB per hour, and if current trends stay true, the average Netflix viewer streaming at the highest video quality could find their monthly Netflix traffic consumption rising to more than 300GB a month.