Wise Startup Blog

FreeTVOnline is a great new site I found that searches the Internet for all of the free tv episodes that are out there, and lets you watch them in streaming on-demand TV shows, documentaries, and a bunch of stuff.

I tried to watch a couple of Ali G Shows, but gave up before I could find one that streamed in under 1 minute. I was able to find a bunch of content for 24, and it started streaming instantly.

The only problem for that one 24 episode, however, was that the site was in Japanese …complete with subtitles and everything.

FreeTVOnline most likely is not legal, but fun none-the-less.

FTO acts pretty much like PirateBay, etc. wherein they just aggregate a bunch of different content but don’t actually provide any of the content themselves, which most likely puts them in a favorable legal position, but based on the recent commotion with Hulu, NBC Direct, iTunes pull-out, I’m sure we’ll see FTO seeing some lawsuit intervention very soon.

That being said, if they can prove visitors, and provide a good enough user experience, then they can always go the YouTube route: get sued, get bought, get sued for more money, and then end up settling and doing distribution deals with the same people they just sued.