You still can't access Hulu, the popular and free on-demand streaming TV and movie service, from a PlayStation 3. Hulu mysteriously started blocking PlayStation 3s from accessing content and the company has yet to address the issue, leading to endless speculation on the site's motives. Around that time, I submitted a complaint to Hulu's customer service, innocently asking why my PlayStation 3 couldn't access Hulu.

It's taken a while, but someone at Hulu customer service -- named "Rob" -- finally got back to me. The otherwise nameless Rob provided a lengthy explanation for the situation Hulu's in without directly addressing the issue regarding blocking PlayStation 3 consoles. In summation, the PlayStation 3 problem appears to be linked to a legal issue with a Hulu content provider.

"Everything we do is with an eye toward achieving our long-term goal of maximizing the content you can access as conveniently as possible in a way that 'works' for the content owner," reads the response I received from customer service. "In the short-term that may require us to make some tough decisions, but we only do so when we believe it improves our long-term prospects to build a more enduring, legal solution to that same problem."

This comment is prefaced with a long explanation the distribution models for television and movies (i.e. a movie starting in the theater, transitioning DVD and pay-per-view and eventually hitting pay-cable channels). I honestly have no idea why Hulu's customer service department believes someone who's looking for technical help would need to know these background details (again, this wasn't submitted as a media request), unless he figured out I'm a reporter.

"Distribution availability across platforms -- theaters vs. TV vs. recorded media like DVDs vs. online streaming vs. mobile phones -- was always implicitly or explicitly controlled in that world," continues the explanation. "But a few factors have made the barriers between those platforms more permeable: the rise of the web, increased broadband availability, the ease of digitizing video, and the increase in the computing power of devices like gaming consoles, set-top boxes, and mobile phones."

"However, in the near-term," says Hulu, "the windowing strategy is still dominant in the business. Billions of dollars flow in across these different windows, and entire companies are organized around them. Nothing productive comes from flouting that reality (except to law firms who work on the occasional lawsuit)."

At no point does Hulu ever really address my problem: why my PlayStation 3 can't stream episodes of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia anymore. But if this issue is a legal hook related to a content partner of Hulu, as the response implies, maybe it won't be disappearing anytime soon.