Networks Stop Short Of Suing Web Site

By Jack December 17, 1999 11:16 AM

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Despite threats of a lawsuit and numerous written complaints, no legal action has yet been filed against ICraveTV.com, the Canadian Web site that is streaming some 15 channels of network and local TV programming.?Bill Craig, who operates the site, professes to be bewildered by all the uproar.?"They're talking to lawyers, they're talking to the press, but they're not talking to me," Craig told Wired magazine's online edition on Thursday.?Wired quoted from a letter written by a Toronto attorney representing Craig to one of the TV companies complaining about the site: "As a retransmitter of over-the-air broadcast signals, our client has an absolute exemption from any liability of copyright infringement.?Your client is well aware of these provisions of the Canadian Copyright Act." The act, which originally was written with cable providers in mind, allows the free retransmition of broadcast signals, provided that they are not altered.?Broadcasters claim that, since Craig frames the broadcast video with his own ads, he is, in effect, altering the picture.

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