Comcast is favoring its NBC Sports and NBC Universo in issues like tier placement and authentication for online viewing, beIN Sports said in a docket 12-1 program FCC carriage complaint Friday. It said its sports programming is similarly situated with the NBC properties, but the cable operator puts beIN soccer programming in tiers with lower subscriber penetration and doesn't give beIN the right to authenticate Comcast viewers for online watching via the beIN website and app, though it authenticates the MVPD's viewers for online watching of Comcast-affiliated soccer. BeIN said Comcast wouldn't let it be part of a direct-to-consumer product, though it offers NBC Sports and Universo English Premier League games as such. It said such discriminatory behavior can be due only to "Comcast’s desire to favor its affiliates over these affiliates’ competitor." It asked Comcast be found in violation of Communications Act Section 616, covering regulation of carriage agreements, and the Comcast/NBCUniversal order, and require the MVPD carry beIN programming on terms that "compete fairly." Comcast didn't comment.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's 2016 ruling rejecting Sky Angel's complaint that Discovery Communications and its Animal Planet improperly terminated affiliation agreement (see 1609120042). The docket 16-2050 decision issued Thursday by Judges Albert Diaz, Dennis Shedd and Harvie Wilkinson in Richmond, Virginia, and penned by Diaz, said contractual language between the parties was so broad as to make the contract itself unclear, and the lack of definition of areas like "high-speed data connection" doesn't mean Sky Angel can use any type of such connection. It said contract language was vague, but granting Sky Angel distribution rights would have gone against Discovery's policy of prohibiting distribution of linear programming over the public internet. Sky Angel counsel didn't comment. Oral argument was in December.

While pay-TV operators in the U.S. and Europe want to aggregate subscription VOD services for subscribers, most don't have an open platform at the set-top box, making that integration hard, and some are overly selective about the SVOD services they are willing to aggregate, nScreenMedia analyst Colin Dixon blogged Monday. He said including only select services isn't sustainable long term since the legions of subscribers to an SVOD service not supported by their pay-TV operator will head to other platforms that do support that SVOD. To keep up, operators must adopt an open platform to run their set-tops, he said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo of Brooklyn is recommending plaintiffs Dish Network, TVB Holdings, China Central TV and China International Communications collectively be awarded $46.14 million in statutory damages and that the defendant, alleged streaming video pirate HTV International, be enjoined from transmitting CCTV or TVB programming, including programming for which Dish has the copyright. That was the finding of a docket 16-cv-1489 report and recommendation (in Pacer) filed Friday with U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of New York. It said HTV mounted no defense and plaintiffs' allegations are enough to establish vicarious infringement. Dish and the Chinese programmers sought a certificate of default a year ago (see 1703230067).

Copyright bots like YouTube's Content ID system have inherent shortcomings, like the inability to differentiate between infringement and fair use or between similar-sounding general noises, meaning such bots aren't good at protecting free speech, Electronic Frontier Foundation Policy analyst Katharine Trendacosta blogged Wednesday. She said some content companies pushed for copyright bots to be required for platforms hosting third-party content, and, beyond being a threat to speech, that requirement also would be "a huge and expensive hurdle" for new platforms. YouTube owner Google didn't comment Thursday.

The FCC Media Bureau dismissed a Wave Broadband petition for declaratory ruling against Comcast's NBCUniversal and three regional sports networks, saying the complaint is actually a program access complaint but a time-barred one, coming three years after Wave signed a contract with Comcast. In the docket 17-361 order posted Wednesday, the bureau said Wave's complaint was "clearly" brought under Section 628(b) of the Communications Act, which governs unfair cable operator competition, and Section 628 violations allegations are considered through program access complaints. The bureau also said Wave didn't give any reasons to justify a waiver of the one-year time limit on bringing a program access complaint. Wave outside counsel didn't comment. Its complaint said Comcast's over-the-top offerings unfairly undermined its own ability to meet existing programming agreement terms (see 1712190041).

Growth of low-price virtual MVPDs helped lead to a 4 percent decline in traditional pay-TV subscriptions in 2017, and those virtual MVPDs' pricing policies will mean accelerated sub losses among traditional MVPDs this year, nScreenMedia Colin Dixon blogged Sunday. He said virtual MVPDs are, at best, breaking even, but it's unlikely any will back away from such "aggressive pricing," so traditional pay TV could lose another 5 percent this year, possibly falling below 90 million homes.

The U.S. District Court in Houston does in fact have jurisdiction over Canadian and British defendants, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2), in Dish Network's copyright complaints against alleged streaming video piracy operations ZemTV and TVaddons, Dish told the court in a docket 17-1618 reply (in Pacer) Wednesday to the defendants' motion to dismiss (see 1801090012). Dish said the defendants didn't respond to written discovery requiring them to identify any other state in which they would be subject to jurisdiction or seeking information about their contacts with other specific states. And it said the two "purposely availed themselves" of the U.S. market for producing and distributing ZemTV through TVaddons. Counsel for the defendants didn't comment Friday.

A foreign broadcaster uploading copyrighted content onto its website and making it available for streaming to U.S. users is in violation of the Copyright Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in a docket 17-7051 opinion Friday. The ruling affirmed a U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruling that Polish government-owned broadcaster Telewizja Polska was violating Spanski Enterprise's copyrights and awarded Spanski $3.06 million in statutory damages. The appellate court rejected Polska arguments it was the end users who selected which content to view who ultimately were responsible for any infringement. It also rejected Polska arguments that its failure to geo-blocking the content for which Spanski had exclusive North American rights happened in Poland and therefore claims of Copyright Act liability would be an impermissible extraterritorial application of the law. Polska outside counsel said the decision was being reviewed. Deciding were Circuit judges David Tatel, Thomas Griffith and Robert Wilkins, with Tatel penning the decision. Amicus briefs in favor of Spanski had come from the U.S. and from Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros., RIAA, American Association of Independent Music and National Music Publishers' Association.

The video market for content equipment supplier Harmonic is “opportunity-rich, but still very much in transition, as our customers evolve from traditional broadcast and pay-TV models to new over-the-top models,” said CEO Patrick Harshman on a Wednesday earnings call. The migration from “traditional” pay TV to what Harmonic calls “Over-the-Top 2.0" is very much “poised to trigger a global wave of investment in new unified video platforms that enable delivery of premium live over-the-top services and targeted advertisements with broadcast-like quality and reliability” to large-screen TVs as well as mobile devices, said Harshman. Ultra HD will be a key “additive to these next generation over-the-top services,” he said. “We're pleased to be finally seeing a still early, but clear pickup in customer demand” for such services, he said. The “ongoing wave” of mergers and acquisitions in media and telecom “is inextricably linked to enabling and exploiting this next generation of streaming video services and associated personal advertising,” he said. “The endgame is unquestionably greater investment in next-generation over-the-top streaming platforms, underscoring the opportunity for Harmonic to leverage our strong technology platform and global brand to play a key enabling role in this global re-invention of the pay video business model.” Harmonic shares closed 15.7 percent higher Thursday at $3.50.