I sort of figured this day would come… Based on my perception of the licensing/royalty complexities and content providers fear that a current web video catalog piped to the television competes with live broadcasts. Hulu has shown their true colors – spawned of big media and beholden to big media. And Boxee has become a victim of their amazing success:
two weeks ago Hulu called and told us their content partners were asking them to remove Hulu from boxee. we tried (many times) to plead the case for keeping Hulu on boxee, but on Friday of this week, in good faith, we will be removing it
We don’t yet know what this might mean for others, like PlayOn, D-Link DivX Connected, and SageTV HD Theater, that also deliver Hulu content to the boob tube. Even if these folks don’t hear directly from Hulu, they’ve got to be rethinking the development resources they dedicate to Hulu support going forward. Related, I don’t believe this move foreshadows Hulu’s own set-top box. It’s just more of the same old school, short-sighted thinking that crippled the record labels. Good luck with that.