Valleywag already covered it, but if you check yourself on Justin.tv’s “Most Viewers” page you’ll see for yourself. They’re intentionally allowing massive copyright infringement of live sporting events as a way to increase their traffic. As I type there are nearly 1,900 viewers (over 150,000 views total) watching an NBA Laker’s game on the top channel and 500 watching another NBA stream on the second most popular channel. Not much traffic on any other channel really.

http://www.justin.tv/kdktv

http://www.justin.tv/strecoptetor

These streams are always very easy to take down because they’re the only streams getting large number of viewers on Justin. They’re on very regularly and the users are rarely if ever banned for the blatant abuse. It is clear that in the last couple months they’ve made a conscious decision to stop building a real live streaming site and attempt to go the YouTube route with live video. It worked for YouTube except for the $1 billion Viacom law suit. The big media companies are a bit more wise to this stuff now. Stay tuned for the law suit against Justin.tv. Hiding behind the DMCA might work for a while but such obvious and gross copyright violations won’t go unnoticed for long.

What’s weird about it is they are pretending like they don’t know and lying to themselves and others about it

http://newteevee.com/2008/04/10/newteevee-rerun-justintv-gets-lucky/