Big Nets Come Down on Little Boxee

AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka writes about Boxee, which “has gone from obscure startup to an irritant or worse for the TV business.”

Boxee describes itself as giving users “a true entertainment experience to enjoy your movies, TV shows, music and photos.”

Kafka writes that business model doesn’t sit well with some big broadcasters because it “symbolizes a real threat for the established players: That one day, many consumers will consume most of their TV via video they found on the Web. And then they’ll cut TV networks and cable operators out of the picture.”

That’s a long way from happening, but just the notion of it seemed to be enough for GE’s NBC and News Corp.’s Fox, who apparently forced their Hulu joint venture to stop working with Boxee last month. Now Hulu and Boxee are in a cat-and-mouse game, where Boxee’s engineers try to find ways to get Hulu’s stuff onto their browsers, and the Hulu guys try to stop them.

In fact, if Boxee CEO Avner Ronen knew how complicated and deep the big media companies work, “he might never have tried to get the company going,” Kakfa writes.

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