NBC Universal and News Corp. finally have a name for their
joint venture Web video site. It’s called Hulu.
Welcome to the world of Googles, Yahoos and YouTubes, NBC and News Corp.
In a statement posted to Hulu.com, CEO Jason Killar explained the
reasoning behind the name.
“Objectively, Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and
rhymes with itself. Subjectively, Hulu strikes us as an inherently
fun name, one that captures the spirit of the service we’re
building,” Killar wrote.
Hulu also announced it’s now accepting sign-ups at hulu.com for
invitations to its private beta, which will go live in October.
Killar said invitations will go out in waves, as the site reiterates
in response to user-feedback.
An October start to Hulu’s beta testing only puts the Web video site
two or three months behind schedule.
When News Corp. CEO Peter Chernin and NBC Universal President and CEO
Jeff Zucker announced a joint venture that would become Hulu in March, they said the network would debut this summer with thousands of hours of full-length programming, movies and clips from at least a dozen networks and two major film studio.
Didn’t happen.
But Hulu did manage to publish its Terms of Use, which start to paint
a picture of what the site will be like.
A section titled “Unsolicited submissions” suggests just how
different Hulu will be from Web video rival YouTube.
“Hulu does not knowingly accept unsolicited submissions including,
without limitation, submissions of scripts, story lines, articles,
fan fiction, characters, drawings, information, suggestions, ideas or
concepts.”
You won’t find that kind of language on YouTube’s Terms of Use. But
that’s because unlike YouTube, Hulu’s content will largely consist of
glossy produced content from major studios and television networks.
Still, the Terms of Use did indicate that there would be some room
for user-generated content on the site. The tell? A section on
copyright infringement, of course.
“Hulu.com will process notices of alleged infringement which it
receives and will take appropriate actions as required by the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (the “DMCA”) and other applicable
intellectual property laws,” the terms read.
These days, the DMCA is perhaps best known as the law that Google,
YouTube’s owner, intends to use as a defense against a suit from Viacom.
According to Google, the DMCA protects YouTube against being liable when users illegally upload copyrighted videos. That Hulu mentions the same law signals some kind of user-generated content on the site is likely to appear.
