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But it's also the part where it's really hard for me to imagine how a legal opinion against Aereo could be crafted, without abridging the principles of public a

But it's also the part where it's really hard for me to imagine how a legal opinion against Aereo could be crafted, without abridging the principles of public access to broadcast TV. I agree, but it makes me think of when people say, "Well, you can't copyright an integer. And if I convert a DVD to a series of bits, and that series of bits expresses a very large integer, then I'm free to share that uncopyrightable number." It's clever, and arguably true, but it just doesn't fly in real life. The color of bits bites you in the ass, and I sort of expect that to happen with Aereo as well. Yeah, each part makes sense, but taken as a whole some judge is likely to think, "If it walks like a duck ..." What's worse is if a judgement comes down against Aereo that, perhaps inadvertently, opens the door for abuse precisely because it ends up abridging the principles of public access to broadcast TV.

Dylan16807 13y ago
In that scenario, the very premise is wrong. You can copyright integers under certain creative circumstances. It's not the use of logic that's broken.
- jamesbritt 13y ago
  Do you have an example of an integer copyrighted as an integer?
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    Do you accept base 36? How about hex http://daniel.haxx.se/hexpoetry/ http://daniel.haxx.se/hexpoetry/ http://daniel.haxx.se/hexpoetry/goodies.html http://daniel.haxx.se/hexpoetry/goodies.html What matters is a certain level of creativity and art. 'as an integer' is no more meaningful than 'as postscript' or 'in times new roman'. It's about the underlying work.
    - jamesbritt 13y ago
      Intersting, though I think the copyright is with the readable poem, not the integer that can be derived by intepreting the poem as hex. Has this ever been tested in court?