Aereo Wins Appeal - Trial Likely for Streaming TV

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/business/media/aereo-wins-in-appeals-court-setting-stage-for-trial-on-streaming-broadcast-tv.html?_r=0

by paul9290 • 13 years ago

62 34 13 years ago

nytimes.com

themckman• 13 years ago

I could see something like this being very useful for watching out of town sports teams. For the NFL, I might want to tune to the local Fox/CBS station to watch some game that I wouldn't normally get in my market. That is, assuming it's legal...

parfe• 13 years ago

You need a credit card with a billing address in the market area: https://aereo.com/zips

fotbr• 13 years ago

Fortunately, there are companies offering private mail boxes and forwarding services in most medium-to-large cities, so obtaining a billing address in the market of your choice isn't particularly difficult.

fnordfnordfnord2• 13 years ago

It is a Rube Goldberg scheme, to avoid even sillier copyright law(s). Good for them, and us, I think.

rayiner6• 13 years ago

It's not really the copyright law that was silly, but the precedent case Cablevision that created this silly loophole to something being considered a "public performance."

betterunix6• 13 years ago

No, it is copyright law that is "silly." When we need to build antenna arrays just to get around ludicrously outdated restrictions, the problem is the restrictions. What makes copyright worse is that the restrictions it imposes on our use of modern technology have not remained in place because the wheels of politics are slow, but because our politicians would rather protect anachronistic business models than push society into a new age.

paul9290• 13 years ago

I'm very excited about this!

I feel it's the beginning of the slow demise to the cable TV business model.

Aereo could easily add third tier cable stations or up and coming stations looking for an audience, i.e. Al Jazeera, Current TV and others. To fill in the void of no CNN, Fox News and others. ESPN though is a different story.

badgar• 13 years ago

Why should they settle for third tier cable stations? I want HBO, Showtime, ESPN. If you're in the clear rebroadcasting Fox News you're in the clear with ESPN. How could -or would- you possibly see a difference? Copyrighted content is copyrighted content.

InnocentB• 13 years ago

The issue is that they'd need an agreement with these stations. They don't need one with, say, NBC, because NBC is broadcasting their content over the air, and Aereo's arrays of tiny antennas are all receiving them. To do a similar thing for a cable station you'd need one cable subscription per user, which is pretty likely to wreck their business model. Third-tier stations looking for more viewers are more likely to license their stuff cheaply.

fnordfnordfnord2• 13 years ago

I'd really like to see them challenge the FCC's silly geographical restriction too. There is no good reason not to let us watch NYC broadcast television from anywhere.

rayiner6• 13 years ago

The geographical limitation is inextricable from the copyright limitation. Just because I intended to let you watch my TV show for free in NYC (by broadcasting it over the air) doesn't mean I wanted to let you watch it anywhere in the country.

betterunix6• 13 years ago

Copyright holders are going to have to learn that the Internet is here to stay, that it is free from geographical restrictions, and that we are not going to halt the progress of technology for the sake of their antiquated business models. It takes less time to send a HD feature-length movie from Japan to New York than it takes to go to a video rental store. Times have changed, technology has improved, and we are not stuck with the same restrictions we had in the 1960s.

Red flag laws did not stop the automobile; why should copyright stop innovative uses of the Internet?

baddox• 13 years ago

Using the analogy in the article, would it be illegal for me, sitting just outside the NY border, to watch NY broadcast television via a cable attached to an antenna that is inside NY?

bickfordb• 13 years ago

I don't see how the intention of copyright holders in this case is pertinent to what is legal. This line of thinking seems pretty similar to the arguments made in first sale doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine) intending to close grey markets.

If one can legally bridge a "free" over the air broadcast over TCPIP one mile (or whatever the size of a broadcast area is), why not one hundred miles or even across the country?

chime2• 13 years ago

I've signed up for Aereo when it comes to Tampa. We currently have Netflix, HuluPlus, and often buy movies on Amazon Instant. $8 Aereo + $8 Netflix + $8 Hulu = $24. Add in $4/movie on Amazon for one/two movies a weekend and you can spend less than $50/mo and have access to near infinite amount of good content and live content when you want.

Cable companies didn't have to offer à la carte packages because the market, despite tremendous barriers, made that possible. Instead of picking channels, we pick the medium - Aereo (live local), Netflix (vast archived library and hopefully premium new content like House of Cards), Hulu (latest TV shows), and Amazon Instant (relatively new movies). This is very different from deciding if you want Discovery, HGTV, or HBO. Instead of picking genres, we're joining libraries. And I'm perfectly happy with that. In fact, I think this is a much better outcome than relying on cable companies to provide a good selection of TV channels.

My Roku and AppleTV can stream from many different libraries and I can turn the subscriptions on and off easily.

joonix• 13 years ago

Why not just use an antenna? I'm missing something here. Aereo sounds nice for people who want to stay connected to their hometowns when living away, but if you're in Tampa why stream Tampa OTA TV when it's free over the air?

chime2• 13 years ago

I tried. I spent $100+ dollars on various digital antennas but because of my location/trees/neighborhood, I barely get one or two channels, none of them clearly.

nobleach• 13 years ago

This is the first I've heard of what sounds like brilliant technology. It'll take the power away from the networks... so of COURSE it'll get shot down. The only reason I can see them hating this, is that a user seeing broadcast TV from NYC yet living in Salt Lake City is not likely to be spending any money at White Castle Hamburgers...so advertising dollars spent have the perceived effect of deflation. I don't think it's right at all. Would it be illegal if I bought the land, put up an antenna and ran a cable across the country?

signed0• 13 years ago

I'm surprised that PBS was one of the plaintifs. I can't fathom how Aereo's service harms them, given that they do not show commercials. Do they believe that this is going to reduce the amount of people that watch telethons or buy their show on DVD?

dublinben• 13 years ago

PBS relies on syndication fees to fund their programming. If viewers were able to circumvent geographic broadcasts, it would undermine their national network system. Soon, only a handful of broadcasters or producers would be left, and anyone outside their area wouldn't have broadcasts any more.

savrajsingh• 13 years ago

IIRC, Aereo only lets you watch channels you could pick up with an antenna in your current location. So it's a DVR for the free channels you're already getting OTA, but with a much more convenient delivery mechanism (straight to your phone). And no need to set up an antenna, as they take care of that.

nebula• 13 years ago

For that matter the 'private one copy per user', is even simpler to maintain without actually requiring to store multiple copies. All they need is a deduplication mechanism at the storage layer, and store the files block wise. Legally they could prove that they are recording a copy per user, while they would be paying close to a single copy cost in terms of storage.

Aereo Wins Appeal - Trial Likely for Streaming TV

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