Mitch Wagner writes, “Omniverse CEO Jason DeMeo says a piracy lawsuit against his streaming TV service is full of crap. Omniverse faces piracy litigation from an alliance of content companies. But DeMeo says his company has a mind-blowing 100-year deal that allows it to stream TV channels over the Internet. Looks like somebody more than 25 years ago may have traded the crown jewels for a handful of beans, and Omniverse is enjoying the benefit today.”
According to DeMeo, Hovsat and Hughes signed the original deal in the early 1990s, and the length of the deal was for the incredible duration of 100 years, and allowed for national distribution rights, given that the home-builder operated in multiple states and wanted to provide video services to those communities. Knowing that their operations cross state lines, Hovnanian Enterprises, he said, decided the best option was to pursue the development of a private cable business.“They can’t live with a short-term contract; they needed a long-term contract,” DeMeo said per his understanding of how the deal originated decades ago. “They are potentially on the hook to serve neighborhoods for potentially 100 years… Having a five-year agreement doesn’t work if you’re going to be a supplier of cable for an entire community.”
The contract, he said, “will blow your mind.” “It’s not a normal agreement, it’s extremely unique… 80% of our contract is about protecting intellectual property… We’re just distributors and marketers, that’s all we are.”
Omniverse CEO: ‘I’m Doing Everything Literally by the Book’ [Jeff Baumgartner/Light Reading]