Apple Is Making Over the Top Streaming to TVs Much Easier

AirPlay, a feature of Apple's new "Mountain Lion" operating system, allows users to wirelessly beam what's on the screen of your iPhone, iPad, or Mac to your TV, if you have an AppleTV.

That means suitably-equipped users can send "webpages, YouTube videos, iTunes rentals or anything else you can think of onto an AppleTV unit without wires," says Jason Snell at MacWorld. Apple AirPlay will boost OTT video

To be sure, the ability to do so does not automatically mean all the content people prefer is available. That is a matter of content licensing. But the capability will mean it is much easier to view any web content directly on a TV, which means the user experience for any over the top TV viewing is vastly better.

Some might say the issue, going forward, is how long it takes for "piracy" to become a big enough issue that content owners will have different incentives to permit lawful viewing of movies and licensed TV content without having to do so illegally.

Hulu, for example, apparently blocks display of its content on a TV, even though it obviously allows such viewing on a web device. ABC, CBS and NBC also do so.

AirPlay on the Mac doesn't materially change the economics of entertainment video, at least for the moment. But it is one more building block for the eventual infrastructure that will pressure the existing economics of the video entertainment business.