“These feeds do not appear to be protected in any way, and it appears anyone with a compatible phone can view them,” stated Howard Chui, founder of Howardforums.com

MobiTV Inc., the TV services arm of Sprint Nextel Corporation is slapping Howardforums with a cease letter. Howardforums is a web forum that teaches users how to access MobiTV’s channels for free. MobiTV streams programs for FOX, MSNBC, and Animal Planet. Howardforums refused, so MobiTV sent a letter to Net Access LLC, the host of Howardforums. Howard Chui of Toronto, Ontario is the owner of Howardforums.com.

Sprint Nextel charges $9.99 per month to subscribe to MobiTV’s 100 channels. And Howardforums has roughly 800,000 users. Chui’s argument for the case of MobiTV is that users are putting the direct URLs for these videos on MobiTV’s web site. These URLs are accessible to anyone on the Internet.

The Associated Press compared this case similar to the HD-DVD keys showing up on Digg.