6 ms·

Aereo Wins Appeal - Trial Likely for Streaming TV

62 points by paul9290 14y ago

themckman 14y 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 14y ago
  You need a credit card with a billing address in the market area: https://aereo.com/zips https://aereo.com/zips
  - fotbr 14y 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.
    - 205guy 14y ago
      Right, but you'd also need a CC tied to that billing address, one that will presumably be billed monthly, so not a one-time throw-away. So you need a CC and a private mailbox service in every city you want to see TV. But that is really just circumventing the must-live-in-service-area rule, so subject to being found out and cut off. The limitation on transmitting copyrighted works essentially creates a geographical monopoly with respect to television. Even if you could fly to another city and watch TV for free there, it is a copyright violation for a company to send you the signal from an antenna there. That's also why the Zediva rent-a-DVD-remotely was struck down: even if you own or rent the equipment, it seems illegal for the company to transmit the copyrighted work to you. The ruling in the Aereo case gets around this because they limit their transmission to people who get the exact same free-to-air signal. There is still a transmission (which is what the dissenting judge based his argument upon), but the practical effect of getting the same content you would get otherwise seems to have prevailed, fortunately. IANAL so I don't know how accurate that all is, but it's the understanding I've gotten from reading around.
fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
It is a Rube Goldberg scheme, to avoid even sillier copyright law(s). Good for them, and us, I think.
- rayiner 14y 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."
  - betterunix 14y 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 When we need to build antenna arrays just to get around ludicrously outdated restrictions, the problem is the restrictions.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.
    - rayiner 14y ago
      The restrictions in this context have nothing to do with politicians or the statute. They come from a loophole in the case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Network,_LP_v._CSC_Holdings,_Inc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Network,_LP_v._CSC_Hold.... The case made a big deal about the fact that Cablevision was streaming separate streams to each user, and therefore it wasn't a public performance. The correct answer would've been: IP unicast is never a public performance.
      - betterunix 14y ago
        None of that would have been an issue if we simply did away with copyright and created a new system that made more sense in this day and age. We do not need a system that relies on huge, centralized monoliths to distribute our entertainment anymore, we made something better and are desperately hoping the law will catch up.
paul9290 14y 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 14y 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 14y 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.
fnordfnordfnord 14y 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.
- rayiner 14y 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.
  - betterunix 14y 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?
    - rayiner 14y ago
      The fact that the internet is free from geographical restrictions doesn't mean that copyright holders don't get to impose whatever terms they want on your right to view the content they create. > Red flag laws did not stop the automobile; why should copyright stop innovative uses of the Internet? Terrible analogy. With red flag laws, the obsolete industry was just getting between the transactional relationship between car manufacturers and drivers. In this case, the "obsolete" industry is creating the thing that's of real value, the thing that people want: content.[1] There is nothing stopping internet-savvy content creators from allowing their content to be distributed over the internet under liberal terms, other than the fact that people don't want that content, they want the big name content from the big name content producers. And internet companies, like Youtube, etc, who make money off other peoples' content have tremendous incentive to make it seem like a battle of "progress versus outdated industries" when what they want is to be able to make a profit by inserting themselves in the middle of these transactions.
chime 14y 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 14y 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?
  - chime 14y 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 14y 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 14y 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 14y 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 14y 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.
savrajsingh 14y 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 14y 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.

62 points by paul9290 14y 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 14y ago
You need a credit card with a billing address in the market area: https://aereo.com/zips https://aereo.com/zips
- fotbr 14y 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.
  - 205guy 14y ago
    Right, but you'd also need a CC tied to that billing address, one that will presumably be billed monthly, so not a one-time throw-away. So you need a CC and a private mailbox service in every city you want to see TV. But that is really just circumventing the must-live-in-service-area rule, so subject to being found out and cut off. The limitation on transmitting copyrighted works essentially creates a geographical monopoly with respect to television. Even if you could fly to another city and watch TV for free there, it is a copyright violation for a company to send you the signal from an antenna there. That's also why the Zediva rent-a-DVD-remotely was struck down: even if you own or rent the equipment, it seems illegal for the company to transmit the copyrighted work to you. The ruling in the Aereo case gets around this because they limit their transmission to people who get the exact same free-to-air signal. There is still a transmission (which is what the dissenting judge based his argument upon), but the practical effect of getting the same content you would get otherwise seems to have prevailed, fortunately. IANAL so I don't know how accurate that all is, but it's the understanding I've gotten from reading around.

fnordfnordfnord 14y ago

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

rayiner 14y 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."
- betterunix 14y 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.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    The restrictions in this context have nothing to do with politicians or the statute. They come from a loophole in the case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Network,_LP_v._CSC_Holdings,_Inc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Network,_LP_v._CSC_Hold.... The case made a big deal about the fact that Cablevision was streaming separate streams to each user, and therefore it wasn't a public performance. The correct answer would've been: IP unicast is never a public performance.
    - betterunix 14y ago
      None of that would have been an issue if we simply did away with copyright and created a new system that made more sense in this day and age. We do not need a system that relies on huge, centralized monoliths to distribute our entertainment anymore, we made something better and are desperately hoping the law will catch up.

paul9290 14y 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 14y 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 14y 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.

fnordfnordfnord 14y 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.

rayiner 14y 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.
- betterunix 14y 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?
  - rayiner 14y ago
    The fact that the internet is free from geographical restrictions doesn't mean that copyright holders don't get to impose whatever terms they want on your right to view the content they create. > Red flag laws did not stop the automobile; why should copyright stop innovative uses of the Internet? Terrible analogy. With red flag laws, the obsolete industry was just getting between the transactional relationship between car manufacturers and drivers. In this case, the "obsolete" industry is creating the thing that's of real value, the thing that people want: content.[1] There is nothing stopping internet-savvy content creators from allowing their content to be distributed over the internet under liberal terms, other than the fact that people don't want that content, they want the big name content from the big name content producers. And internet companies, like Youtube, etc, who make money off other peoples' content have tremendous incentive to make it seem like a battle of "progress versus outdated industries" when what they want is to be able to make a profit by inserting themselves in the middle of these transactions.

chime 14y 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 14y 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?
- chime 14y 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 14y 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 14y 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 14y 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 14y 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.

savrajsingh 14y ago

nebula 14y 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.