Whipclip: A better (more legal) Redlasso?

Tom Paine

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Remember Redlasso?

It was the Malvern-based video-clipping site that let you pull a video clip from anywhere you wanted to on TV (actually from Redlasso servers). In fact, the site is still live, though its last clip is from 2013.

The only problem is that it was doing something it didn't have the right to do, although it made the claim it was permissible under fair use. It shut down in response to
a lawsuit by Fox and NBC in 2008. A year later it reached an agreement with Fox to enable users to get clips of local Fox outlets' news broadcasts, but that apparently didn't go too far. It also raised another $2 million in investments in 2009, but I have no idea what happened to it after that. Investors included local real estate executive Daniel Keating III, Guggenheim Venture Partners, Osage Ventures and Anthem Capital.

But now, Demand Media founder Richard Rosenblatt has found a legal way to do it, through a series of negotiated deals with media companies. The service, LA-based Whipclip, went live in private beta yesterday, Re/code reports. He raised a reported $20 million, from ventures firms and entertainment figures, and Whipclip's valuation is said to be around $100 million. Its not initially a consumer app, but WhipClip hopes to become one.

Update: In another case, a judge recently ruled that TV clipping could be considered "fair use" in a limited sense.