Earlier this month we noted how Disney and ESPN had sued Sling TV for the cardinal sin of actually trying to innovate. Sling TV’s offense: releasing new, more convenient day, weekend, or week-long shorter term streaming subscriptions that provided an affordable way to watch live television.
These mini-subscriptions, starting at around $5, have already proven to be pretty popular. But, of course, it challenges the traditional cable TV model of getting folks locked into recurring (and expensive) monthly subscriptions. Subscriptions that often mandate that you include sports programming many people simply don’t want to pay for.
So of course Time Warner has now filed a second lawsuit (sealed, 1:25-mc-00381) accusing Dish Network of breach of contract. In the complaint, Warner Bros lawyer David Yohai argues that this kind of convenience simply cannot be allowed.
Like the illegal sports streams? Ehh. I use them to watch games I can’t get over (free) OTA antenna TV. They very frequently cut out and freeze, or get shut down all together and you have to go hunt for a new one. It’s a game of cat and mouse, and can be very annoying when the broadcast is live. I still put up with it because I can’t be assed to pay to watch sports lol.
I wouldn’t bother with a VPN for simply visiting a website and watching a stream. If anything that will make your connection worse, and a lot of those sites detect when you have a VPN active and won’t let you stream.
I highly recommend an antenna TV for picking up local channels if you’re in the states though. I get a few dozen channels, including the major broadcast ones like CBS NBC abc fox, all in HD for free off the air. I actually built one with my dad close to 20 years ago using scrap copper wire, a plank of wood, some PVC pipe to hold the wire, and a coax adapter we got at RadioShack at the mall. You can just buy an antenna on the cheap though if you’d rather not build one.