A small skirmish in the pissing match between Fox and Cablevision could have major repercussions.

A spillover of its contract battle over cable programming with the cable provider, on Saturday Fox temporarily blacked out all of its content on Hulu to Cablevision customers.

“The tying of cable TV subscription to access to Internet fare freely available to other consumers is a very serious concern,” said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts in a statement on Saturday.

The pullback also affected customers who only use Cablevision as their ISP and not for their cable TV.

“When we realized we were affecting non-Cablevision video subscribers, we quickly altered our position,” said a News Corporation spokesperson who had just figured out how the internet works.

As discussions swirl over Comcast’s acquisition of NBC, which owns Hulu, this kind of leveraging of the walled garden controls of traditional media juggernauts to the internet is precisely the kind of behavior that concerns the FCC and consumer advocates. If it concerns you, you can voice your opinion via this online petition.

Internet Is a Weapon in Cable Fight [NYT] (Thanks to BrandonSavage!)

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