Well, it's been a good ride. After months and months of being bombarded with reasons to feel embarrassed for Sherri Shepherd, Today and Good Morning America concert performances, and an endless loop of Anderson Cooper, TV video clipping service RedLasso says it's shutting down. It just might have something to do with the little lawsuit that NBC and Fox just filed against it for copyright infringement. So there will be more more daily embed links to the most recent stink filling up our airwaves … unless you're a paying customer: business clients will still get their clips. (Doesn't that put RedLasso at more risk of claims that it's profiting from others copyrighted works?) And all the videos that have been posted thus far? They should soon be made unavailable. Which might come as a surprise to those working at RedLasso, who, not four hours ago, wanted to let us know about Feist performing on GMA.

REDLASSO TO SUSPEND ACCESS TO BETA SITE

COMPANY TO CONTINUE TO PROVIDE SERVICES FOR
BUSINESS AND RADIO TO WEB CLIENTS

King of Prussia, PA – July 25, 2008 – In light of recent legal actions by two networks, Redlasso announced today that it has no alternative but to suspend blogger access to its video search and clipping Beta site for the immediate future. The company will continue to operate and provide services to its business and Radio To Web clients such as Greater Media and XM Satellite Radio.

The now-suspended Beta site provides bloggers with online broadcast content tools that enables them to exercise their first amendment rights to comment on newsworthy events, by searching blogger-selected TV and radio segments and creating limited duration clips for usage in blog posts. In addition to the Beta site, Redlasso also offers two other services which will continue. The first is a solution for businesses that allows them to track and clip content for internal use. The second service, Radio To Web, is an on-line platform that allows each radio station client to search, clip, and upload its content to its own web site and share that content online.

“We are very disappointed in the actions of select networks. We believe we have always acted within the law and have been respectful of the networks’ rights. Unfortunately, they have forced our hand and are denying the blogging community access to the Redlasso platform that beneficially tracks the usage of newsworthy clips across the Web,” said Ken Hayward, CEO of Redlasso. “Redlasso’s goal is to develop a platform that provides content owners and bloggers a viable solution to tracking and monetizing content online, not to engage in lawsuits. In the eight months the Beta site has been in operation, we have built wide brand awareness and equity amongst the blogger and media communities. The wide spread use of our tools and platform demonstrates that the Redlasso model is a simple and elegant solution for all content owners to track and monetize content usage on the Web; content that would otherwise be untraceably spread across the Internet and used for free.”

Hayward added, “We plan to continue our conversations with all content providers during this usage suspension, with the goal of establishing formal partnerships that will be beneficial to the content owners and blogging community.”

Redlasso’s suspended Beta site is simply a tool that permits the blogging community to search blogger selected content via keywords, enabling them to find and clip the limited duration vignettes on which they wish to comment and play on their blogs. Clip usage by bloggers is an exercise of first amendment rights to provide social commentary on newsworthy events. Other uses of the clips by bloggers are prohibited contractually by Redlasso. The company also employs sophisticated technology to make inappropriate practices difficult.