Storming Heavy Duty Streaming Flash Barriers

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In preparation for today's piece on streaming Flash-video grabbing software and its potential implications for media brands and marketers, I spoke with Macromedia awhile back. The goal was to familiarize myself with the capabilities of Flash when it comes to protecting copyrighted material and generally enabling more control.

In brief, though the story focuses on Applian's new stream-downloading app, several so-called stream ripping applications are already available. The difference with Applian's (or so they claim) is the new product lets users download RTMP streaming Flash streams, or files streamed through Macromedia's more secure proprietary platform. That platform, according to Macromedia, is meant to prevent users from ripping media files or grabbing digital media streams. At this point, though I've played around with the Applian app on a handful of sites, it remains unclear whether the software can really penetrate Flash's heavy duty barriers.

Chris Hock, Macromedia's Group Product Manager for Dynamic Media Organization told me the potential for grabbing video ads or content served through Flash is "definitely a concern for us." He added, "For us to be successful with content providers, we have to be successful with advertisers."