The landscape of online video becomes more interesting by the day. While YouTube find itself bogged down in a quagmire of takedown requests and DMCA notices, Blinkx has decided to roll out a new search tool specifically aimed at directing users to television content that they can view and/or download.
Blinkx Remote Serves Up TV Shows
Fans of Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly are presented with a new opportunity to satiate their episodic appetites with Blinkx Remote, a tool specifically designed to search for the web for full-length episodes of popular television shows.
“We’ve moved beyond watching online video clips to embrace the Internet as a primary entertainment outlet – this is the era of online TV, prime time programs you’ve only been able to watch in your living room on your regular TV are now accessible from your PC,” said Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO, Blinkx.
The Blinkx team feels that the Remote feature represents the most effective way for fans of particular television shows to quickly find a particular episode or season of episodes for immediate viewing.
Some networks are serving up their shows for free in order to boost awareness and draw in viewers. Others have taken up staunch opposition to the idea of their shows being made freely available online, which has led to uploads of a large amount of pirated video content found on sites like YouTube.
Legal or not, however, Blinkx indexes all the television content it comes across without discretion.
The interesting twist here is that Blinkx is a video search engine, not a content provider. Unlike YouTube, it doesn’t host any of the television programming found within the search results stemming from the company’s new Remote feature.
The company is hoping that its status as a search tool instead of a content provider will shield it from any potential legal hassles involving copyright infringement.
