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> What channels can I watch? Puffer re-transmits free over-the-air broadcast television signals received by an antenna located on the campus of Stanford Univers
by aiddun 7y ago
> What channels can I watch?
Puffer re-transmits free over-the-air broadcast television signals received by an antenna located on the campus of Stanford University.
Is this legal? Aereo [0] had to shut down because broadcasters sued them for streaming OTA TV signals, which went all the way to the Supreme Court where they lost. Aereo even had an antennae per customer.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aereo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aereo
- toomuchtodo 7y ago> Is this legal? If it's not for profit and geoconstrained, yes. https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/nonprofit-launches-ny-tv-station-streaming-service-171031 https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/nonprofit-launches-ny... https://www.locast.org/ https://www.locast.org/
- aiddun 7y agoWow, that's really interesting. You would think this wouldn't be okay with channels because it's still depriving them of cable retransmission fees. Looks like they just got a $500,000 donation from AT&T. https://www.wsj.com/articles/streaming-service-challenges-broadcasters-with-free-tv-feeds-11561986187 https://www.wsj.com/articles/streaming-service-challenges-br...
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- cosmie 7y agoAT&T has more to gain than lose by this being successful, since they pay out billions in retransmission fees. They're already playing hardball on retransmission agreements recently, with the current CBS blackout being only the latest example[1]. AT&T added Locast to both their DirecTV and Uverse TV receivers[2], which limits the impact radius of the blackouts that are resulting from their strong-arm tactics. And in the case of DirectTV's receiver, it's a pretty seemless process as the blacked-out channels in the guide automatically redirect you to the equivalent channel in the Locast app. A $500k donation for such convenient leverage is chump change, considering the billions of dollars that are on the line with these retransmission agreements. [1] https://deadline.com/2019/07/cbs-blackout-directv-u-verse-att-contract-dispute-1202649633/ https://deadline.com/2019/07/cbs-blackout-directv-u-verse-at... [2] https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/at-t-locast-is-option-if-there-is-cbs-blackout https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/at-t-locast-is-option...
- toomuchtodo 7y agoThat’s brilliant. TIL!
- chacha2 7y agoIt's 'geoconstrained' by just giving you a tick box that says you're in America. I wish all geoconstraits were that lazy.
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- T1glober 7y agoIncidentally, crypto exchanges in the past (and one very recently, known as Bitmex) have faced issues with US authorities regarding this. Context: US citizens cannot trade unless the exchange is US-licensed. Essentially, US gov applied pressure such that a simple tick box (to prove you are not American) is not sufficient. So, authorities definitely have precedent to enforce geo-constraints, it's just a matter of "do they care".
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- jrockway 7y agoI'm guessing that these broadcasters will be happy to go from 0 to 500 viewers. YouTube hasn't killed them quite yet!
- bitcollector 7y agolive in San Jose but my VPN terminates in Canada, along with all of my DNS queries, so the geofencing is really weak ;) The video quality is really amazing.
- rnotaro 7y agoIt does not verify your location beside if you check the checkbox.
- mrstone 7y agoIn the paper: Our study benefits, in part, from a law that allows nonprofit organizations to retransmit over-the-air television signals without charge.