Aereo was just put out of business by the Supreme Court

[Hacp]

So my TIVO is legal because it's in my home and therefore not transmitting or "performing" the signal to me.

So a TIVO outside your home is illegal?

 

[who?]

A top rated show can cost the network $1,000,000.00 per episode. How do you propose they recover that and make a profit?

 

[Ns1]

A top rated show can cost the network $1,000,000.00 per episode. How do you propose they recover that and make a profit?

lol, 1 million might be enough to pay the cast and crew. Maybe.

 

[smackababy]

So my TIVO is legal because it's in my home and therefore not transmitting or "performing" the signal to me.

Your Tivo is legal because it falls under the same laws as VCRs. You are obtaining a legally broadcasted feed for personal use. Tivo allowing you to access that specific device from anywhere might be a bit iffy, but I would imagine it is the same as iCloud and Google Music and such that let you save your music to their internet servers.

However, I think content providers are trying to fight against those as well. Similar to how they did against VCRs and cassette tapes. Remember the "Home taping is killing music!" campaigns?

 

[poofyhairguy]

This isn't the distribution model to fight for.

Agreed. The answer is to get off the teet of mass consumer media and get onboard with alternative distribution platforms and their content.

It's going to be a pyhrric victory anway. Just like Napster, shutting down the service won't do away with customer demand to receive content via a different distribution model than what the current incumbents are comfortable with. Instead of all rallying around an evolving standard (Aereo) they could have helped mold to their liking, this ruling will just fracture the market into smaller, harder to control slivers. The OTA broadcast television company is a dead man walking with its current business model.

The OTA model died when the government forced a switchover to digital. It is so much harder for people to get a clear digital signal that often getting cable is their only option.

Add in the fact that those who watched OTA channels without cable were the lowest form of scum from an advertising standpoint, and the writing for "free tv" is on the wall and has been.

This CERTAINLY wasn't a pyrrhic victory though. You forget that for OTA tv the "customer" isn't the watcher, it is the advertiser. The product is your eyeballs. So it doesn't matter if the watcher wants a more convenient distribution platform, what they will get is what they are willing to pay for or advertisers are willing to pay for.

Everyone just needs to look in the mirror and realize it doesn't matter how easily you can imagine a Spotify for TV and movies, it is not going to happen anytime soon. And when it does happen it will be the same $100 a month the cable company charged, oh except now you will have to jump through hoops of logins and access.

The only way for cord cutters to "win" is to reject mainstream content.

 

[smackababy]

Agreed. The answer is to get off the teet of mass consumer media and get onboard with alternative distribution platforms and their content.




The OTA model died when the government forced a switchover to digital. It is so much harder for people to get a clear digital signal that often getting cable is their only option.

Add in the fact that those who watched OTA channels without cable were the lowest form of scum from an advertising standpoint, and the writing for "free tv" is on the wall and has been.

This CERTAINLY wasn't a pyrrhic victory though. You forget that for OTA tv the "customer" isn't the watcher, it is the advertiser. The product is your eyeballs. So it doesn't matter if the watcher wants a more convenient distribution platform, what they will get is what they are willing to pay for or advertisers are willing to pay for.

Everyone just needs to look in the mirror and realize it doesn't matter how easily you can imagine a Spotify for TV and movies, it is not going to happen anytime soon. And when it does happen it will be the same $100 a month the cable company charged, oh except now you will have to jump through hoops of logins and access.

The only way for cord cutters to "win" is to reject mainstream content.

Of course a Spotify for TV isn't going to happen. The music industry was caught with their pants down and is paying for it. TV Networks are in a far better position and will adapt to their advantage when forced.

 

[Kneedragger]

Don't most of your local networks that broadcast content OTA stream shows over the internet free on their website?

 

[Lonyo]

It's not the ruling it's the Law.

From the link in the OP.

No. 13–461. Argued April 22, 2014—Decided June 25, 2014
The Copyright Act of 1976 gives a copyright owner the “exclusive righ[t]” to “perform the copyrighted work publicly.” 17 U. S. C. §106(4). The Act’s Transmit Clause defines that exclusive right to include the right to “transmit or otherwise communicate a performance . . . of the [copyrighted] work . . . to the public, by means of any deviceor process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance . . . receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times.” §101.

They can make this argument because the law does not limit it to specific technology or devices (nor should it).

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

Hell, I'm surprised the word digital even made it in the text.

The law is about PUBLIC performance. The whole point of Aereo's technology was to make it so it WASN'T a public performance.
Therefore ignoring the technology element which is what was designed to make it a non-public performance means they ignored the whole thing that was meant to keep it compliant with the law. They changed the definition of public to suit their needs, and that's what has everyone shitting themselves.

Moreover, the subscribers to whom Aereo transmits television programs constitute “the public.” Aereo communicates the same contemporaneously perceptible images and sounds to a large number of people who are unrelated and unknown to each other. This matters because, although the Act does not define “the public,” it specifies that an entity performs publicly when it performs at “any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered.” The Act thereby suggests that “the public” consists of a large group of people outside of a family and friends.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Of course a Spotify for TV isn't going to happen. The music industry was caught with their pants down and is paying for it. TV Networks are in a far better position and will adapt to their advantage when forced.

I agree 100%. Sports distribution platforms will hold out even longer, heck some networks have just STARTED milking the cable model with targeted college sports channels.

We are talking 20-25 years before there is anything close to the cord-cutting dream of just subscribing directly to your favorite channels.

Don't most of your local networks that broadcast content OTA stream shows over the internet free on their website?

If you are talking about platforms like Hulu or the network websites often they purposely limit the content to just be enough to get a "taste" so that people are motivated to buy into normal distribution channels.

 

[Ns1]

If you are talking about platforms like Hulu or the network websites often they purposely limit the content to just be enough to get a "taste" so that people are motivated to buy into normal distribution channels.

I think he's talking about things like ABC Player which airs shows the day after for a certain timeframe.

 

[DesiPower]

Over the last few years one could clearly see Supreme Court losing its legitimacy, becoming a corporate puppet. This was the last nail in the coffin. SC is gone.

 

[smackababy]

I agree 100%. Sports distribution platforms will hold out even longer, heck some networks have just STARTED milking the cable model with targeted college sports channels.

We are talking 20-25 years before there is anything close to the cord-cutting dream of just subscribing directly to your favorite channels.



If you are talking about platforms like Hulu or the network websites often they purposely limit the content to just be enough to get a "taste" so that people are motivated to buy into normal distribution channels.

Sports will be the key. Once the NFL discovers they can just charge people a base $250 per season or something and give them an app to watch whatever, they win. Why bother with cable and satellite? They get 100% of the ad revenue, which isn't going anywhere, and they get total control of the content.

 

[DesiPower]

Sports will be the key. Once the NFL discovers they can just charge people a base $250 per season or something and give them an app to watch whatever, they win. Why bother with cable and satellite? They get 100% of the ad revenue, which isn't going anywhere, and they get total control of the content.

Cable companies will say, fine, provide on internet only, forget about broadcasting shows through us. 80% of the population wont be able to watch without cable.

 

[Phoenix86]

So if I rent someone else's computer remotely and use their TV turner, it is considered illegal as well?

I expect it would be illegal because you don't have rights to the local broadcast. Might also nail you on the rental thing, that's a service not a product.

 

[who?]

Don't most of your local networks that broadcast content OTA stream shows over the internet free on their website?

They have advertising when you watch online and a few weeks ago one of the networks had me log into some deal with the local station.

 

[tynopik]

Aereo never was able to show to a satisfactory level that its technology worked like it claimed.

You keep saying that, but that's not what the decision says.

 

[lxskllr]

The law is about PUBLIC performance. The whole point of Aereo's technology was to make it so it WASN'T a public performance.
Therefore ignoring the technology element which is what was designed to make it a non-public performance means they ignored the whole thing that was meant to keep it compliant with the law. They changed the definition of public to suit their needs, and that's what has everyone shitting themselves.

What Aereo was doing was renting a server for the user to watch TV with. Same as if I rented an apt in NY, setup an antenna and server capture/store TV, and access it from CA. If the second is legal(and it absolutely is), the first is legal also. Anyone who doesn't see it doesn't belong on a tech forum.

 

[Hacp]

I expect it would be illegal because you don't have rights to the local broadcast.

So if I had a computer somewhere with a local tv tuner and logged in remotely, I would be illegally streaming the local broadcast?

Might also nail you on the rental thing, that's a service not a product.

What do you mean? Renting is renting. You borrow and use it.

 

[Robert Thomas]

What’s the difference between a hypothetical enhancement to Tivo OTA (as I describe below) and Aereo?

I’m new here - pardon me if I missed answers to hypothetical questions resembling those below where they may already appear in the thread.

I understand that Aereo has been offering to rent an antenna to its customers and offer a DVR service that records and stores - at Aereo's site - captured over-the-air broadcasts to transmit (with capabilities similar to other DVRs) to their customers over the internet. Customers use it as though it were an OTA DVR located, along with a unique antenna, at a remote location that receives control commands over the internet FROM the customer and then streams the requested stored audio/video programming over the internet TO the customer.

The Justices have disallowed this.

My sister has a Tivo brand DVR in her home that is designed to collect and store - in her home - OTA broadcasts received at her rooftop antenna, for convenient playback. She subscribes to no cable or satellite service. She payed for the Tivo receiver outright and for life-of-the-equipment directory service (no monthly fee). It seems this has been deemed allowable.

IF a service provided by some other company (or Tivo, even) allowed my sister to receive television programming at her rooftop antenna and then send the content over the internet to a "cloud" storage space (assuming she had the upload bandwidth to practically allow this) for convenient playback (with something like DVR functionality), would the mere fact that the data was stored to and retrieved from a location remote from her home prohibit such a service? Suppose her Tivo could "offload" selected programs to "trickle up" to the cloud for future retrieval? The location of the storage media would be the only difference between this scheme and her OTA DVR.

If such a service providing remote storage and retrieval is NOT prohibited, isn't the only difference between legality and illegality then, the location of the antenna? Is that the reasoning of the opinion, as we understand it?

 

[Ichinisan]

Cable TV started as a community antenna on a hill or mountaintop. It was perfectly fine back then. There were no objections from broadcast networks. It would have been insane for them to object. It brings these over-the-air broadcasts to more viewers, which increases ratings and ad revenue.

These local broadcast stations shouldn't be allowed to extort per-subscriber fees from cable and satellite companies as they now do. It's just sick. They don't seem to understand that they are not the same as a a cable network.

Cable networks like MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, Discovery, History, etc don't broadcast free / unencrypted / over the air. They can restrict access to their encrypted satellite feeds however they want. It already increases costs periodically when these networks re-negotiate their contracts with TV service providers. Over-the-air broadcast networks should not be able to do the same thing. They need to cut the bullshit and acknowledge that they're getting free distribution with cable / satellite providers.

 

[jpiniero]

Should mention again that there were rumors that Time Warner was interested in buying or ripping off Aereo had they won. The idea would be that they would use that to get around paying the broadcast fees. Obviously that's not going to happen now.

These local broadcast stations shouldn't be allowed to extort per-subscriber fees from cable and satellite companies as they now do. It's just sick. They don't seem to understand that they are not the same as a a cable network.

That's the point - soon they will be. OTA is going away eventually. This ruling just delays the inevitable.

 

[DCal430]

You keep saying that, but that's not what the decision says.

Read the decision. You obviously haven't. The judges never accept aereo explanation, they simply said it wasn't relevant.

 

[Phoenix86]

So if I had a computer somewhere with a local tv tuner and logged in remotely, I would be illegally streaming the local broadcast?



What do you mean? Renting is renting. You borrow and use it.

If you own the equipment, and only you have access to it, it's private. Because of this you should have rights to the local broadcast. You can save it, and view it remotely. You are not distributing it.

If you rent/lease/pay a monthly for the equipment and others can access it, whoever you are paying is broadcasting. It's publicly available (for a price).

I think we all agree slingbox is kosher. A weird situation could be created if I have local broadcast rights and rent it. Think about a hosted slingbox in your broadcast region, but that's not what Aereo was doing.

They are not doing one antenna/device/storage for every user. I seriously doubt they have more antennas than are channels and start recording any time anyone is watching that channel. If no one was watching an odd OTA channel, why record it? Either that, or they just say fuck it and record all channels at all times, you just tap into the feed when you watch online. Save one copy the recorded shows, stuff like that. That's all a bit of speculation, but I'm sure it's not far from the truth.

 

[Skel]

I don't understand a few things about aereo. If they were renting a OTA antenna and allowing me to log into that 'box' to view it like a remote TV I could see that being legal. The issue I have with that idea is they also state a couple of things under Support. One being there is a delay in progamming because it's recording and I'm watching that recording.
http://support.aereo.com/customer/p...s-there-a-slight-delay-when-i-start-watching-

http://support.aereo.com/customer/p...-can-i-watch-one-show-while-i-record-another-

If they're making a recording for me to watch, wouldn't that directly mean they're rebroadcasting it? They record it, and then stream it to me for watching. Am I missing Something there?

They're also saying they're renting me one antenna for this, but if I give them $4 more I can record a show and watch a different one. I can't find where that means I'm getting a second antenna, just I suddenly have dual channels on it. I could see them having a ton of antennas where they can pick up everything going on, but unless there's a antenna to subscriber 1 to 1 thing going on, how can that not be rebroadcasting? I have to missing something here..

 

[Ichinisan]

That's the point - soon they will be. OTA is going away eventually. This ruling just delays the inevitable.

...then they better give that free broadcast spectrum back to taxpayers to make better use of.