Microsoft has launched a lawsuit against TiVo, alleging that the DVR maker is infringing on patents related to the display of programmable information and the sale and delivery of videos, according to a report from Bloomberg. Microsoft’s lawsuit is widely seen as a move to defend AT&T in a related lawsuit filed by TiVo last August when it sued the telco as well as Verizon in an attempt to force them to license its DVR patents.

This isn’t the first time TiVo has engaged in such lawsuits. The company has been in a long legal fight with satellite TV providers DISH and EchoStar about DVR patents, and judges have so far sided with TiVo. Most recently, a court awarded TiVo $200 million. However, the U.S. Patent Office has cast doubts as to whether TiVo should have been awarded patents for time-shifting in the first place — something that is surely going to come up again in Microsoft’s lawsuit against the DVR maker.

Microsoft, of course, has a vested interest in the outcome of TiVo’s lawsuit against AT&T, whose U-verse service is based on Microsoft’s Mediaroom solution. Mediaroom is essentially a media center with online access and DVR capabilities that Microsoft supplies to telcos to support their broadband offerings, and any legal precedence against AT&T would force other potential Mediaroom customers to license TiVo’s technology as well. Furthermore, AT&T has insisted on Microsoft picking up the tab if TiVo prevails in court.

TiVo said in a statement released today that Microsoft’s lawsuit wasn’t any sign that its claims against AT&T are unfounded. “Rather these actions are part of a legal strategy to defend AT&T,” adding that the company remained confident that AT&T will be found liable.

For TiVo, there’s a lot at stake with these lawsuits. The company has been bleeding subscribers lately, losing as many as 314,000 in the quarter ending Oct. 31st. TiVo has been more successful at striking patent licensing agreements with cable operators, as well as DirecTV. TiVo’s legal victories against DISH have certainly helped the company to strike some of those agreements. However, the case against DISH has been going on since 2004, and one has to wonder how long a dispute fueled by Microsoft’s war chest would last.

The irony of this conflict is that TiVo recently complained in a comment to the FCC that cable companies are stifling innovation by restricting the use of set-top boxes. Maybe it’s time that TiVo starts spending fewer days in court and more days to actually innovate itself?

BBC to Offer Over 2,000 Hours of Winter Olympics Coverage; the Beeb’s Red Button interactive TV service will have 2,000 hours of coverage available, compared to approximately 160 hours of coverage on BBC Two. (InteractiveTV Today)

Telegraph.co.uk Ditching Brightcove for Ooyala; The Telegraph has signed a deal with Ooyala to manage the clips on its Telegraph TV section. (paidContent)

Video Ads Become More Engaging; online video ad companies are responding to agencies and advertisers by providing more flexibility in how they deliver their messages. (VideoNuze)

Unigo Selects Kaltura to Power Video for Its Online Platform for College Students; white-label platform will be used to deliver video on Unigo.com, including WSJ On Campus. (press release)

VOD Outperforms DVRs; Video On Demand will reach 54 percent of US households by 2015, compared to 44 percent for DVRs, according to a new report from Interpublic’s Magna Global. (Broadband TV News)

YouTube has announced its first worldwide sports deal, confirming that it will stream Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket matches live online. Beginning on March 12, all 60 matches of the 45-day IPL tournament will be streamed on a dedicated YouTube channel at youtube.com/ipl and on the IPL’s web site at www.iplt20.com.

The deal is a significant one for YouTube, as it will have the rights to broadcast the cricket matches all over the world, not just in markets where the IPL hasn’t sold TV rights. In fact, the only place where the YouTube stream won’t be available is the U.S., where “re-broadcast options will be available,” which means that U.S. viewers will most likely have to turn to Willow.tv for streams of the matches. Under the terms of the deal, YouTube will have exclusive online streaming rights for two years, and will share sponsorship and advertising revenues with the IPL. The deal could be particularly significant in the UK where, due to the recent collapse of IPL TV rights holder Setanta, YouTube might be the only show in town.

The move to YouTube comes a year after the tournament made its video available online in a free, ad-supported format from the IPL web site. That led to a significant increase in viewership, with more than 15 million unique visitors and 28 million live video sessions over the course of the five-week tournament. But streaming the ‘09 tournament was not without its problems: As Om reported last year, the online presentation was a bit of a failure, at least in the early days of the tournament.

Hopefully this time around, running on YouTube’s infrastructure will keep the streams from crashing as they did last year. The move could also provide another huge boost in viewership, based on YouTube’s global reach.

Have you ever wanted to host a video chat over Skype with more than two participants? How about sharing documents or presentations while chatting in real time? Well video conferencing startup ViVu has got you covered, with a new plugin that will allow enterprises to host multi-user video chats and share documents through Skype.

ViVu, which came out of stealth mode last October with a $3 million Series A financing round, offers a SaaS video webcast and collaboration service that it hopes will rival Citrix’s GoToMeeting and Cisco’s WebEx. The startup launched with a browser-based platform for video conferencing that can support hundreds of users and allows participants to interact with each other while viewing presentations or other materials.

Now the company is stepping outside the browser with a Skype plugin, called VuRoom, that extends its multi-user video chat and collaboration capabilities to the voice and video conferencing application. Looking to continue to offer low-priced alternatives to GoToMeeting and WebEx, ViVu has priced VuRoom at just $9.95 a month for users that will act as conference hosts — and the plugin is free to download for conference participants. ViVu is also making the plugin available for free to customers that use its browser-based conferencing service.

Once installed, a host can select users from his Skype buddy list to join a video chat and share documents or his desktop with users in the conference. But the plugin isn’t necessary to join a conference; hosts can also have Skype buddies join by clicking a URL, which will take them to a browser-based user interface.

Being able to connect without having the plugin installed is a plus, since the installation process isn’t as easy as one might hope, in my experience. It’s a job that is probably best left to IT staff — or at least done with the help of someone that is familiar with setting it up. As a result, it’s not clear how many participants will end up installing the plugin on their own. However, once installed, the app works as advertised and delivers an easy-to-use interface for chatting with multiple participants and sharing documents, based on my test with ViVu CEO Sudha Valluru.

ViVu currently has about 50 enterprise customers for its browser-based conferencing but hopes to grow that number by extending to other platforms. According to Valluru, the Skype plugin is just the first step for VuRoom, which ViVu plans to extend to other instant messaging platforms in the near future.

Related GigaOM Pro Research:

Is Facebook Video Chat the Future of Social Media?

Just when you thought life was cruel and not worth living, a new round of hope and happiness has begun livestreaming via Ustream. Yep, a new litter of Shiba Inu puppies were born on Jan. 16, 2010, and mama Kita’s five new offspring are just as cute as the six last year who won the Internet’s heart, racked up nearly 18 million views and found new homes after their antics and naptimes were delivered online.

Free TV : Ustream

In 2009, the Puppy Cam won the Webby People’s Voice Award for Best Viral and raised over $11,000 for the Shiba Inu Rescue Resources of America. When I checked in on the stream this afternoon, the channel was approaching 18 million views and over five thousand viewers were tuned in. No big surprise, though. It was feeding time, and thus extra adorable.

It’s not clear where Conan O’Brien will end up when he finally departs NBC, but some have suggested he take his act online, where a number of people already watch his antics. Revision3 even issued an open letter to the late-night talk show host, promising him the opportunity to create a brand new show through its network.

But what do web video pros think? To find out, we asked a few if moving Conan from late night to the web would make sense. Some dismissed the idea, saying that the economics wouldn’t work out and that there was no way a web show — even one with a brand like Conan O’Brien at the helm — could possibly make money. But not surprisingly, Jim Louderback, CEO of the company that wrote the open letter to Conan, sees a model where the late-night host could generate significant revenue, if not the same level of revenue, under the broadcast model.

First, let’s look at the money Conan is generating now. Based on the approximate 2 million viewers that show up to watch The Tonight Show on TV, along with the number of ads that are shown, Louderback estimates that NBC pulls in about $200 million a year from Conan’s show.

But what happens if you move Conan online? Let’s say the move cuts his audience in half, resulting in about a million people tuning in. With a couple of pre-roll or mid-roll ads and a bunch of overlays shown on YouTube model, Louderback estimates that the show could pull in around $40 million. A more conservative estimate, with Conan retaining about 500,000 viewers per episode and lower CPMS, puts revenue at between $15 million to $20 million — which definitely isn’t broadcast money, but is still good money when compared to other online productions.

“What are great numbers for an independent show creator are not great numbers for Conan,” said Mike Hudack, CEO of blip.tv. “Some of the best web shows make hundreds of thousands of dollars, but Conan makes about $1 million per episode.”

What might be a bigger problem for getting Conan — or really any network star — to take his show online is the cost of funding production. The Tonight Show employs a massive staff, which Tim Shey, co-founder and executive vice president of Next New Networks, says he’s unlikely to part with. “Conan’s got a whole band, he’s got 30 writers. I can’t wait for the first Conan to come to web television, but Conan wants to get jobs for his whole staff.” Online, Shey said, “you have to do these things lean, do them tight, and do them low-cost.”

It seems unlikely that Conan would make a move online — even if he can afford to do so, having just negotiated $40 million from NBC to leave the network, according to reports. But most believe the day of the network star moving online could come soon, since the audience is already there and the money is following fast.

If I were going to start my own awards show, I’d call it the Well-Played Awards, and it’d celebrate all the random and creative web series that, regardless of financial or viral success, have delighted me over the previous twelve months. And this year an early contender for a 2010 Player trophy has already emerged, so I must say: Well-played, Very Mary-Kate. Well-played.

Created by Elaine Carroll, a New York-based actor/writer (who in a blonde wig is a dead ringer for Amy Poehler), Very Mary-Kate frames itself as the unauthorized biography of Mary-Kate Olsen, the former child star and famous twin who attended NYU, picks up the odd acting role and is occasionally photographed on the streets of New York dressed like a bag lady. Carroll’s portrayal of Olsen takes these factors and expands on them, creating a character who’s a weak-yet-demanding kitten obsessed with calories, abusing her bodyguard and getting her hands on the good drugs.

Suffice it to say that the Valley-girl-transplanted-to-SoHo portrayal is thus incredibly harsh, but unless you’re actually Mary-Kate Olsen, I defy you not to laugh. Production values are low and the sound quality is less than impressive, but the informal nature of the videos work, and the tightly-paced episodes fit a whole lot of painfully funny jokes into just one minute. The exchanges between her and her bodyguard are especially funny thanks to his defeated nature — the pair make for a truly engaging odd couple.

Accompanying the show is a @VeryMaryKate Twitter account (which has been running since April 2009), which provides no shortage of great one-liners and increases the show’s social networking component; Carroll’s command of the character even in text form is complete. The only major fault I find with Very Mary-Kate, in fact, is the lack of any release strategy — the first three episodes premiered on Vimeo nine days ago, and there are no details available about when more might be coming. The Well-Played Awards demand a little more effort, Ms. Carroll. Or at the very least a fourth episode.

Attending the Strike.TV screening at the American Cinematheque last Friday was like going on a trip in a time machine. I say this not because the hour-and-a-half screening — broken up by lengthy Q&As with a wide range of cast and crew from the approximately 15-20 web series featured — was held at the historic Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles, but because the entire evening was mired in the year 2008.

This attitude came from comments made by the execs present, such as CEO Peter Hyoguchi, who admitted that the reason Strike survived the economic downturn was because it’d never managed to become a full-scale operation. “It’s good we never got funded, because you have to be in business to go out of business,” he said. But while during both the introductory videos and the Q&As, creators waxed romantic about the joys of producing their content for the web, free of studio notes and other restrictions (exactly the same points that were made in 2008), some of those same creators did engage in some real talk about just how far, financially, they were willing to take their labors of love.

www.strike.tv Teaser from StrikeTV on Vimeo.

For example, when moderator Bob Kushell asked if a new season of Dangerous Women would be forthcoming anytime soon, star/producer Ellen Sandweiss was quick to reply, “Are you gonna pay me for it?” And Fusion creator Richard Manning was equally upfront about there only being a pilot episode for his 2009 project, and needing some kind of funding in order to continue. “You can really only ask people to work for free once,” he said.

Anyone But Me creators Susan Miller and Tina Cesa Ward said that their show is currently funded thanks largely to a private investor, but if they can’t find a sponsor for its third season, they might have to make the show subscription-only — even after switching to a new distribution deal with Blip.tv.. Even Unknown Sender creator Steven De Souza admitted that instead of paying people conventionally, his cast and crew worked for “profit participation” — with the exception of his sound guy, who insisted on being paid upfront and who, I would guess, is one of the very few people to make a profit from his involvement with Strike.TV.

The night was kicked off by the first episode of Unknown Sender, starring Timothy Dalton, which was part of the site’s original launch back in October 2008. But more recent acquisitions like Coma, Period and Mountain Man were showcased for the half-capacity crowd. In addition, there were some previews of shows to come, and it was announced that Strike had acquired The Goob, a Swedish-produced animated series that will be distributed, unconventionally, through the websites for country-western radio stations.

Of the ten shows that were part of Strike’s initial launch, none of them except Unknown Sender went on to produce more than two episodes; the sixth and last episode of Sender was uploaded in December 2008. Since then, shows have come and go — some good, some bad — but from an outsider perspective, no franchise player has helped the site secure the traffic it needs in order to be sustainable. “We can only get the exclusive rights to a show if we can drive traffic,” CCO Ian Deitchman said.

In addition to the Goob deal, international travelers can now watch Strike content while flying on Virgin Australia, and COO Christopher Barrett said that an iTunes deal is likely, though due to the amount of content on iTunes currently, it’s a deal they’ll only make if they can properly promote it. Marketing their content in general was a major issue for Barrett — the problem is getting the financing to do so, given that advertisers aren’t excited by the “ratings” they currently have.

The long and the short of it is this: Sure, it’s cool to see the man who played James Bond on stage talking about the freedom that comes with producing content for the web — even if he hasn’t been personally involved with a web project since 2008. But welcome to 2010, guys, where the reality is that said content has to be good, and has to have a real business plan in place. As Barrett admitted Friday night, “We don’t know what we’re doing — we’re just figuring it out day by day.” Fifteen months into the site’s launch, that’s not exactly what anyone rooting for Strike.TV wants to hear.

Related GigaOM Pro Research:

Even if he doesn’t have the support of NBC, Conan O’Brien has the support of the Internet, leading the charge as the most-talked-about television personality for the past week, according to Trendrr.

Conan collected 215,145 tweets for the week, with a peak of 51,843 tweets on Tuesday, Jan. 12 — the same day that he sent out a statement declining NBC’s offer to move The Tonight Show to 12:05 instead of 11:35. Jay Leno was the third most-tweeted about TV topic for the week, with a total of 91,035 posts all week and a peak of 19,336 posts on Thursday, Jan. 14.

Not everyone was talking about the late-night drama going on between Conan and Leno, however. The Gleeks came out in full force when news of a second season of Glee broke early in the week. The show was tweeted about 98,067 times during the week, with a high of 29,715 on Monday. And Jersey Shore also did well, as viewers tweeted 35,007 times on Friday, and 66,254 times during the week.

It was also a big week for football, as the NFL playoffs were in full effect. If tweets translated into points, the Dallas Cowboys might have had a fighting chance against the Minnesota Vikings. Instead, the team’s embarrassing loss led to an outcry on Twitter — with 111,966 tweets on Sunday and a weekly total of 147,718. The Saints were second, with a peak of 57,023 on Saturday — the day of their game — and 120,664 in total. The Vikings were third, with 82,056 posts on Sunday and 100,236 total, and the Chargers came in fourth, with 74,073 posts throughout the week and 55,743 on Sunday. Fifth and sixth were the Colts, with 74,025 during the week and a peak of 47,059 on Sunday, and the Jets, with 72,001 for the week and a peak of 28,355 during their win on Sunday, who will play each other next week in the AFC Championship game.

Google TV Ads: 2010 May Be the Make-or-Break Year; the TV ad auction system is still working with only one major pay-TV provider, EchoStar, and a much smaller, local California cable company. (paidContent)

Digitalsmiths Teams With Microsoft; at CES, Microsoft demonstrated how Digitalsmiths can add more interactivity to Silverlight so viewers can click on a character, actor, or object and link to more information. (Beet.TV)

YouTube to Show Live Indian Premier League Cricket?; reports from Indian media say Google and the Board of Control for Cricket in India will announce a live streaming deal on Wednesday. (paidContent)

Thinking Outside the Box: Web TVs Skirt Cable Giants; content and features built directly into the TV have become the selling point for the next generation of high-definition sets, gaming consoles and boxes — and none of it is coming from your cable operator. (AdAge)

YouTube Search Accounts for Nearly 28% of All Google Searches; according to comScore’s December 2009 U.S. Search Rankings Report, YouTube searches grew 35 percent year over year to more than 3.9 billion search queries. (ReelSEO)

Jivox Video Ads Get Social and Interactive; the startup says it’s adding social and interactive features to its do-it-yourself ad creator. (VentureBeat)

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game console already has a huge install base, a wide variety of content and engaged users. And now, according to an article in the New York Times, Microsoft is in talks with Disney to bring some live video content from ESPN to the gaming platform. So what’s to stop it from becoming a virtual cable operator?

Microsoft has already shown that it can deliver a live and on-demand offering, as seen through its deal to bring programming from UK satellite operator Sky onto the Xbox. The Sky Player on Xbox 360 offers the same electronic program guide and live content that’s available through a Sky set-top box. And Microsoft has been working with AT&T to enable its U-verse subscribers to use their Xbox gaming consoles as a set-top box.

So it’s possible that Microsoft could launch a live, multichannel video service on the Xbox platform. But is it likely?

Let’s start by looking at the potential audience. Microsoft has a pretty large install base, with more than 39 million Xbox 360s sold to date. About half of those consoles are hooked up to Microsoft’s Xbox Live service, through which users can play multiplayer games, watch movies from Netflix or purchase or rent movies through Microsoft’s own online video store. According to the NYT article, the Xbox Live service regularly reaches about a million concurrent users, and topped 2.2 million at one point during the holiday break. That’s a pretty large number, but it’s worth noting that most of those users were signed in and using the service to play games, not necessarily watching video.

But would Microsoft risk alienating its service provider partners? The company is currently working with AT&T on integrating U-verse controls into the Xbox 360 — but would it want to then go up against AT&T by offering competing over-the-top-delivered programming? Would it scuttle its deal with Sky by coming up with a live video offering of its own in the UK?

Microsoft isn’t the only company looking at providing an over-the-top subscription video service direct to consumers; according to a report in the Wall Street Journal last year, Apple has been in talks with companies like Disney and CBS to get content that it could charge a subscription fee for users to access. But while Apple has a relatively small base of consumers that have bought its Apple TV Internet set-top box, the Xbox has a much wider footprint.

For now, it seems an Xbox live video service might be a while off; to be sure, one source told the NYT a deal wasn’t imminent. Even so, ESPN is a good first choice for content partner, as consumers have shown time and again that live events — and live sporting events especially — are of strong interest and help to drive new business models.

Related GigaOM Pro Research:

• The Ongoing Battle for the Digital Home
• The Evolution of Over-the-Top Video

Last year, to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, we assembled videos of the man doing what he did best — speaking out and inspiring others. This year, though, let’s look a little bit more at the impact he had on the world around him.

The official Biography YouTube channel has put together a five-minute bio on King, beginning with his early education before examining his role in the civil rights movement.

And ABC News has uploaded the original announcement of King’s assassination, though it’s not available for embedding.

Stanford University’s Clayborne Carson, a historian and director of the MLK Jr. Research and Education Institute, meanwhile, theorizes on what King would have thought about the state of America today, mentioning that King would potentially have been much more committed to issues of social justice over civil rights.

But here’s where his impact can really being seen — in the recap provided by young Riorden, who tells YouTube user MissGhettoPanCakes everything he learned about King in school that day.

The yet-to-be-launched episodic video content site Hitvidi.com just announced a new contest that promises ten online video makers $10,000 each to finance the production of new shows. Producers have until May 1st to come up with a proposal for an original series as well as shoot the pilot episode.

Hitvidi.com claims to be open for all genres, but there’s a bit of pressure to create something that’s gonna generate lots of views. After all, the site’s claim is “the space for hit shows.” You know, just in case you needed the meaning of the site’s name spelled out.

Hitvidi.com aims to open to the public this fall, and the winners of the contest are supposed to premiere their shows on the site during its launch. Creators are promised a split of ad revenue on top of the $10,000 production budget, but it’s unclear what exactly the conditions will be.

Speaking of money: The ten lucky winners won’t receive the $10,000 up front, but prorated throughout the first season of their show, meaning that you’d get a little bit each time you deliver a new episode. Runner-ups may apparently also be offered a chance to produce their show for Hitvidi.com at a later time.

As always with web contests, it’s worth reading the fine print before committing. This page mentions a right of first refusal, as well as another important detail: “All monies awarded are valued in Canadian funds.” Luckily, the difference isn’t as much as it used to be. 10,000 Canadian dollars comes out to about 9,700 green ones.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: By The Numbers: Budget Analysis of a Web Series

The “resubtitle the Hitler bunker scene from the 2004 German drama Downfall” meme got new life this week when YouTube user DugganFilms applied it to the Leno/Conan debate:

This latest instance inspired the folks at New York Magazine’s Vulture blog to ask Downfall director Oliver Hirschbiegel what he thinks about the meme. And don’t believe any of the stereotypes about German people having no sense of humor — Hirschbiegel loves them. “You couldn’t get a better compliment as a director,” he said.

Vulture mentions some of Hirschbiegel’s favorites including Hitler Can’t Get Billy Elliot Tickets…

And Hitler Finds Out Michael Jackson Has Died.

‘

Though personally, I’m partial to this mash-up of Downfall and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

The creator of the above, who posts his other Downfall parodies on YouTube as HitlerRantParodies, is incredibly prolific, having created dozens of these videos. But his most meta accomplishment was Hitler Is Informed About the Hitler “Downfall” Parodies.

Which says all that needs to be said.

Okay, let’s admit it. We all have our own ideas of what a movie pirate looks like. Maybe we think of him as a sun-depraved teenager, spending his nights scouring torrent sites. Or we remember the guy who tried to sell us bootleg DVDs downtown the other day. Maybe we believe in a connection between movie piracy and organized crime. Or maybe we just think of the guy we get to see in the mirror every morning.

Either way, it might be time to do away with these stereotypes and think of piracy as a much more pervasive practice. That’s one of the conclusions of a new report titled “Changing Attitudes & Behaviours in the ‘Non-Internet’ Digital World and their Implications for Intellectual Property” that was just released by the U.K.-based Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property (SABIP). It focused on all the types of piracy that don’t have to do with downloading and file sharing, ranging from bootleg DVDs to shared hard drives. And it turns out that this kind of “sneakernet” piracy is at least as popular as P2P file sharing.

Much of the research available about copyright infringement has been conducted on behalf of organizations or companies with a stake in the debate: The entertainment industry regularly publishes data about economic losses due to file sharing, and companies selling solutions to enforce intellectual property rights have also been busy collecting data to show just how vast the problem is. SABIP doesn’t quite fit into this picture. It’s part of the U.K.’s Patent Office, and aims to help the government with independent research provided by outside consultants who seem to be mostly interested in doing more research. In other words: Don’t expect any easy answers from these guys.

Still, the 84-page study (PDF download) is an interesting read. It sums up various existing studies looking at offline piracy, both from industry and market research as well as academic backgrounds. Here are some of the key findings the authors decided to highlight: Between 9 and 16 percent of U.K. adults buy counterfeit DVDs, and an additional 23 percent join in on watching or simply borrow those disks. In the UK alone, 89.4 million movies and TV shows are distributed via counterfeit DVDs and various forms of home-copying per year. And much like BitTorrent, physical piracy is a gift that keeps on giving: Only 32 percent of DVDs burned at home are copies of original retail disks. Most people just duplicate what someone else copied for them.

The study also highlights some interesting demographic facts about offline piracy: “Offline consumers of counterfeit discs are older, with dependent(s), more likely to belong to lower socio-economic groups –- as compared with the predominantly young, well educated, technologically-savvy demographic who infringe copyright online.” Another reason that drives people to physical disc piracy are babies and toddlers that make it impossible to catch current releases on the big screen. Maybe the key to fight piracy would be better babysitters?

Speaking of fighting piracy: The study finds that there is little rights holders and authorities can do to stop this type of file sharing. Copyright doesn’t seem to be on people’s minds when they buy pirated DVDs or swap movies from hard drive to hard drive. Only 31 percent of people who abstain from offline piracy quote legal reasons as the deciding factor to do so, and most people who do go for a fake copy cite price and availability as the primary reason.

However, that’s not really reflected in most of the research about the subject. Many studies still treat piracy as a willful act. Some consumers decide to break the law, while others stay clean. Truth is, most people don’t even bother thinking about this distinction. “In reality, … legality is just one of a multitude of factors that influence consumption decisions,” the study finds. Add to that what the study calls “confusing market signals,” like the fact that movies get marketed way before they’re available for sale on DVDs, and that DRM seems to punish the people who decide to buy with an added layer of inconvenience, and you got yourself a situation in which offline piracy just seems to be the most logical choice for many consumers.

The authors of the study clearly warn that there hasn’t been enough research done to completely explain why and how people use pirated media. That’s a pity, especially since stricter laws against online file sharing seem to ignore offline trading. From the study: “There is some evidence to suggest that illegal consumers would refrain from downloading if ISPs’ role as a ‘capable guardian’ were to increase, but this is not conclusive, and it may simply shift illegal consumption to the offline arena, where the law is even less enforceable.” In other words: Three strikes against P2P piracy could make sneakernet piracy even more popular.

Related GigaOM Pro Research:

• Bunker Series: Video Rights Roundtable
• Will Automated Rights Management Take Down Fair Use?

Just get back from vacation? Been focused on other news stories? Or just been too busy to keep up with the controversy arising over NBC’s eminent reshaping of its late-night programming? Well, Hulu’s got you covered. Today the video hosting site posted a timeline of 22 videos stretching back over the last week — arranged chronologically, the excerpts from The Jay Leno Show, The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Live offer a relatively complete look at the conversation that’s developed between hosts since the rumors began about Leno’s cancellation.

It’s missing one or two videos, such as Conan O’Brien’s relatively subtle commentary about timeshifting (which came in the form of a conflict between his Twilight and Avatar-inspired assistants).

But this is the first time I’ve seen the Hulu collection tool in action, and this implementation is a great way to capitalize on the almost ironic uptick in ratings that The Tonight Show is currently enjoying as the result of all the back-and-forth taking place. Of course, the big piece it’s missing is David Letterman’s commentary — but that’s CBS’s fault, not Hulu’s.

We’d like to thank this week’s NewTeeVee sponsors:

• thePlatform: What’s Your TV Everywhere Strategy?
• Server Beach: Save 30% by switching to dedicated hosting by Server Beach

Focusing on a specific realm of the food world has been prolific fodder for many producers of web content, a fact reflected by last night’s Tasty Awards in San Francisco, where several creators working in the space were celebrated for their achievements.

Frogwater Media’s Naked Wine Show, for example, pulled off an upset win over Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV in the Best Critic or Review Series, while Average Betty won Best Home Chef in a Series.

In addition, the YouTube-hosted The Adventures of Jolene Sugarbaker took home the Best Comedy award, while the Culinary Institute of America’s podcast won the Best Food Program — Web prize.

Honorees included Next New Networks’ Hungry Nation TV as a Breakout Foodie and Hulu, YouTube, the iPhone, and the Flip HD camera as Outstanding Technological Innovations. And while Wine Library TV didn’t pick up any awards, Gary V. didn’t go home empty-handed; he was honored with the Tastemaker of the Year Award.

The Tasty Awards were determined by both audience voting and a panel of experts, and will be partially broadcast in February 2010 as well as distributed via Hulu. A complete winners list can be seen here.

An observation from this list: While the web video world was well-represented in the food categories, there wasn’t nearly as much competition in the fashion world. Perhaps a field of interest for entrepreneurs in the space to consider, though don’t expect to replace Project Runway’s Tim Gunn — that way lies madness.

Well, America, 2010’s first round of schadenfreude, courtesy of Fox, has finally come to pass. Wednesday night, the second aired episode of talent competition American Idol introduced a nation hungry for distraction from the destruction in Haiti and the late night wars to General Larry Platt.

The 62-year-old contestant auditioned in Atlanta with an original composition entitled Pants on the Ground — lyrics: “Pants on the ground / Lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground” — that is just as ridiculous as it sounds. It’s a high energy performance, though, and Platt genuinely seems like a nice guy, albeit one who doesn’t quite recognize that he hasn’t been invited to perform because he stands a real chance of making it into the next round of the competition. (In fact, he was never even eligible — the show’s age cut-off is currently 28.)

Pants on the Ground is notable because it’s the first real viral hit from the season so far, one that not only has penetrated YouTube with over four thousand illicit versions, but other shows.

For example, last night on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, Fallon covered the song in the guise of Neil Young, complete with harmonica interludes. And the 96.1 Kiss FM Morning Freak Show put together a remix that actually transforms the song into a pretty tight hip-hop track, proof that a solid bassline makes all the difference in the world.

However, as potentially entertaining as this rising meme is, I can’t help but find it depressing. Much like William Hung, whose cover of She Bangs made him famous but also made him the laughingstock of the nation, any success Platt receives from this appearance will be tainted by mockery.

There’s value to American Idol’s championing of young singing talent during later rounds of the show, but the early audition stage of the competition — where you’re far more likely to get some screen time if you’re willing to completely humiliate yourself on camera — frankly just makes me feel dirty. So don’t look for me to complain here about the fact that the American Idol website is poorly designed, or that it’s hard to pull up functioning embed codes for videos. I’ll save that for later, when I’m able to stomach watching the show.

Netflix’s access to streaming video content from Disney and might be limited come 2012, unless Starz can negotiate a deal that will keep the studio’s new release titles online, according to Bloomberg. That would comes as a huge blow to Netflix, which depends on Starz for the limited first-run video titles that are available through its streaming VOD service.

According to Bloomberg, Disney wants more for rights to its films streamed online as part of what it considers to be a premium channel. The negotiations are also happening as Disney seeks to build its own streaming service where it might sell subscriptions direct to consumers.

Up until this point, about 1,000 titles out of the 17,000 available on Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” streaming VOD service — including much of the new release content that consumers want to watch — come through a deal that it struck with Starz in late 2008. Now it appears that, as a way to limit the amount of content that is available on Netflix, the studios are playing hardball with Starz. As a result, Netflix will face more pressure to negotiate streaming rights for its films directly with the Hollywood studios that distribute them.

Netflix recently had some success negotiating with Warner Bros. recently to add more titles to its streaming service, while giving up a 28-day window for DVD-by-mail rentals of new releases. But while a Netflix representative says that deal will increase the amount of Warner Bros. content available on the service by three times, that deal doesn’t include new releases to be streamed — just catalog content.