Video sharing nixed from Home beta

by Justin McElroy { Sep 18th 2008 at 11:15AM }

Though it once seemed an ideal channel for showing friends and loved ones videos of two people having intercourse, it seems that we'll need to find a method other than Sony's Home for furthering our hobby of filth propagation. Wired reports that the previously announced video sharing feature of the service has been axed, at least for now.

Sony says it's "looking into it," but it's looking less and less likely to us, especially considering the considerable legal hurdles Sony would have to overcome to implement the functionality. So, it seems to feed our curious habit of public pornography distribution, we'll be forced to turn to other channels. Speaking of which .... do any of you know any really good skywriters?

Tags: home, home-beta, sony, wired

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

theturtle363 @ Sep 18th 2008 11:21AM

if you're that desperate you could just hire one of those tiny planes that carry the banners behind them with the banner a massive playboy pinup

Justin McElroy @ Sep 18th 2008 11:26AM

That's...brilliant.

Dirty @ Sep 18th 2008 11:44AM

What are the odds you could get sony to lend you the tech that let them do the holographic sea monster in tokyo bay. It would be epic.

Shagittarius @ Sep 18th 2008 11:22AM

My "Home" was going to be a monument to Bacchus, a feast of flesh and fantasy. Anyone brought into my home would immediately be shown the joys of 2 girls and the most popular object of the moment.

Well there goes that Idea I may as well just use a Wii.

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Sep 18th 2008 8:12PM

By the most popular object of the moment, I guess you mean 1 cup.

Eggy @ Sep 18th 2008 11:22AM

Completely pointless feature anyway. Upload speeds are still relatively shit even in the most broadband savy countries. Streaming video to a bunch of friends would mean either shitty quality video or constant buffering.

Jonah Falcon @ Sep 18th 2008 11:25AM

Erm, when I do a video rental on Marketplace, the streaming is fine.

But that's because there's only one of me doing it.

Jonah Falcon @ Sep 18th 2008 11:24AM

As I said, Home will be almost nothing like what was promised, extremely stripped down, etc.

Sony always makes huge promises and never comes through. Remember PS2/AOL?

Metal_Gear @ Sep 18th 2008 11:38AM

No, there is still going to be multiplex cinemas which we can go to and whatch what Sony play. This is just stopping us from ripping a movie and playing it at 'Home' for all our friends to see until Sony sort out the legal stuff.

Jonah Falcon @ Sep 18th 2008 12:01PM

Yeah, and Sony also has the legal rights to the Brooklyn Bridge if you want to purchase it.

borland502 (SDF Macross) @ Sep 18th 2008 12:12PM

N64

VaultICEE @ Sep 18th 2008 12:57PM

Well, aren't we pessimistic?

Zoesch @ Sep 18th 2008 1:25PM

Jonah is Sony going to sell the home you currently reside under?

JayVe @ Sep 18th 2008 1:59PM

Isn't that Sony's M.O.?

Over Promise - Under Deliver

I'm still waiting for my PS3 to play all its games at 120 frames-per-second... and another HDMI port to magically appear on the back...

Obie @ Sep 18th 2008 5:04PM

I never knew Jonah was Captain Falcon's real name. ;)

MC Double Def DP @ Sep 18th 2008 11:25AM

This was going to be one of the coolest features. Another broken promise. Oh well, it's taken so long to come out I don't even remember the point of Home any more.

Syn @ Sep 18th 2008 11:28AM

Next to be axed... Music sharing.

Goddamnit. The wait is fine... but Video & Music streaming were/are the strong points of HOME for me, my interest now is cut in half. Ah well...

Van Faulk @ Sep 18th 2008 12:08PM

Wasn't that already axed?

philmcphail (Free Mr.ESC!) @ Sep 18th 2008 1:54PM

Music sharing isn't axed, but you can't actually share music in Home. Like you can't give someone a data copy of your song. Last I heard though, was that you can show people music and pictures on your Hard drive, in your HOME apartment. I think the reasoning behind the Video sharing is that it will have problems like Youtube did. Major companies like Fox, Time Warner, Viacom, etc have problems with people putting their videos without their consent. If you go on Youtube you probably can't find anything unless its directly from them.

Lars @ Sep 18th 2008 2:33PM

Yeah, same here. I would love to sit down with a few friends and watch X'amd, or AST dew tour, or our latest Eye video creations virtually, rather than the only option be that they come over and crowd the couch.

I just don't get why that's considered legally different. Are we breaking some law by showing our friends videos when they're in the same room? What's the difference? I mean I can see the problem with youtube, because it's more like file sharing and not limited to you and a couple friends.

Marty @ Sep 18th 2008 3:15PM

Lars - read the license and usage restrictions on your DVD's. Public showings and broadcasts are almost always prohibited.

Dirty @ Sep 18th 2008 11:34AM

Its a bird. Its a plane! It Jenna Jameson doing a DP in the SKY!

xGeneral DEATHx @ Sep 18th 2008 4:09PM

Ah, Jenna...at it again...

OTAM @ Sep 18th 2008 11:36AM

This was the main feature of Home I was looking forward to.

I don't understand what "legalities" Sony would have to overcome considering we have things like Youtube available to post stuff. It's not Sony is running the video,it's the users,so they should be held responsible. If they are worried about people showing porno on their tv's...WHO CARES? As long as all parties in the game are of the age of 18,then it doesn't matter. Allow the person who is running porno in their room to display a "adult content warning,must be of 18 to enter this users room" screen before you go into someone's room in Home. It's not rocket science.

Over-hyped and under-delivered.

Ayrkain @ Sep 18th 2008 11:48AM

Look up "Youtube sued" on Google. There are plenty of reasons for Sony to kill this. Personally I think they should have done this a long time ago. I don't care about video sharing, give us a solid Game Launching feature. This is, after all, a gaming console.

CyberKnight @ Sep 18th 2008 12:27PM

Yeah, can't say I'm surprised by this at all. This sounded like a legal mess waiting to happen.

OTAM, you suggest "allowing" the person to put an age warning on his room; you know the first time someone chooses *not* to do that (or "forgets"), or when someone underage gets in anyway (e.g. lying about their age), the media is going to explode and Sony will be in the crosshairs, whether they're *technically* responsible or not.

JayVe @ Sep 18th 2008 2:01PM

If this was going to be such a legal hassle, then why did they announce the feature to begin with? In business, you make sure you shit is going to fly before you sell everyone tickets. :(

Seriously. If Sony would open their mouth less, I'd be a lot more excited about their products.

philmcphail (Free Mr.ESC!) @ Sep 18th 2008 2:06PM

Yeah, dude where have you been? Youtube has been ridden pretty hard about the videos that their users put up. I mean go to Youtube and search "South Park" or "Eric Cartman", you probably can only find like one or two vids than the rest are like audio taken from episodes and mixed with anime stuff or whatever.

OTAM @ Sep 18th 2008 4:28PM

I know Youtube has had lawsuits pressed on them and it's sad. Just like it's sad that torrent sites get closed.

Youtube,torrents,and the video sharing in Home could be a good tool for people to share legal and fun material,but it's better to shut down the entire service instead of having something like user accountability.

People accountable for their own actions nowadays? Now i'm being silly.

SoulBlade @ Sep 18th 2008 11:36AM

Have the user digitally sign a EULA and ban their account if they don't adhere to it.

Idiots who share illegal content shouldn't ruin it for the rest of the crew - take a page from MS and their XBL account banning ways.

Kneel B4 Zurg! @ Sep 18th 2008 12:02PM

Now whats the point of Home again? LOL

Well as with all games, things must get "stripped" in order to make it work. Especially when it comes to legalities. Remember when YouTube was worth watching? (Your favorite copy righted skit's etc. that is.)

philmcphail (Free Mr.ESC!) @ Sep 18th 2008 3:59PM

Exactly, I think Viacom was hard on Youtube. Especially on the Chappelle Show :(, I remembered in weeks most of the videos were deleted and marked as "infringement".

hoagie @ Sep 18th 2008 11:44AM

Marketplace isn't some guy at home with a 20KB upload cap though.

hoagie @ Sep 18th 2008 11:45AM

Argh, this didn't go where it was supposed to.

waves @ Sep 18th 2008 11:46AM

I never really got the point of Home in the first place. It seemed like a very convoluted answer to the ease of connectivity on the 360. Why create a whole new game engine when all that is needed is some a solid network SDK? It has created high expectations that can't be fulfilled, and delayed the final product ad nauseam.

They took what should have been a straightforward (although perhaps not easy) solution and piled a lot of fancy, superfluous features on top of it. As they've dropped the more extravagant of these features one by one, I'm left to wonder how solid the underlying network code is.

ZippyDSMlee @ Sep 18th 2008 12:08PM

As good as UT3's netcode where you need half the pings that gave you the same smoothness of gameplay on the previous title.

Its going to be a mess...

ZippyDSMlee @ Sep 18th 2008 12:02PM

HA ha ha with video shearing gaining the ire of CP nazi sony would be suing itself and its users for fair use infringement.
(and yes I meant it as its written :P)

SoxFan13 @ Sep 18th 2008 12:03PM

Justin- The skywriting joke brought a smirk to my face. Cloud Porn-- patent pending.

Marty @ Sep 18th 2008 12:07PM

Personally, I don't see how they would clear this feature (and music sharing) on the legal end anyway. Almost all movies have licensing text at the beginning specifically stating that you may not show them at a public event of more than X amount of people, and music companies are in the midst of tearing down websites like Pandora... so why would they want you to be able to share their music with anyone on Sony's Home?

I think that if they do ever include either of these features, it will require you to purchase the movies / music specifically for display in Home, or that only viewers who have already purchased said content will be able to view / hear it. I also don't expect any major studios to come on board with this, except for Sony's labels, of course.

I could very well be wrong, but scratching one of Home's most talked-about features from the beta, which was set up specifically to test and fix problems with the system, seems telling of the future.

ZippyDSMlee @ Sep 18th 2008 12:17PM

All of that would work but only via the stuff bought from sony's store.

And how it would work is you can share the item with one friend and they get the time as a rent for free deal. So you can share 5 songs/vids to 5 friends or 3 songs to 1 and 2 to the other.

Would be nice if they could implement a sell/give feature as well.... (sell for 50% of current store price.)

Brent @ Sep 18th 2008 12:08PM

So now what am I going to do with the Bravia TV that I bought for my apartment in Home?

meist3r @ Sep 18th 2008 12:11PM

Does anyone ever think of the licensing issues this video sharing stuff would have? I mean who would want to illegaly download a movie if you could watch in in PS3 Home and probably switch to fullscreen? What about all the TV shows and music videos and such. This will probably never happen or at least with severe content filtering/checks and/or payed structures for buying and sharing videos.