7 ms·

Supreme Court to hear arguments on Aereo this week

129 points by xhrpost 13y ago

akgerber 13y ago
This is a confusing headline, to me— I'd phrase it 'Supreme Court to decide on Aereo, a startup that could reshape the TV industry'
- jisaacks 13y ago
  I thought the same thing, that they had decided. This is the title of the original article though.
  - dang 13y ago
    HN's guidelines call for changing the original title when it's linkbait or misleading. This one was misleading, so we changed it.
joesb 13y ago
> But Aereo argues that it is entitled to draw freely from programs transmitted on public airwaves. Are they talking about the data being broadcasted in public spectrum? Or that the wave travel through public air and atmosphere? If it is the latter and that argument can be used, then would it be legal to capture cellphone communication and any wireless data? I just don't think one should blindly accept unsound argument even if it would result in the change one wants.
- endianswap 13y ago
  They're just re-transmitting normal OTA broadcasts of TV channels intended for end-users.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Their argument isn't that they should be able to use the data freely because it's broadcast over the public airwaves. The relevance of the public airwaves is that there is an existing compromise between broadcasters and the public such that the public is entitled to watch certain content for free over the air, in return for broadcasters being allowed to use the public airwaves. What Aereo is arguing is that their service falls within this existing compromise, because it's no different than attaching a rabbit-ear to your TV with a really long cable. In other words, it's okay not just because the data is on the public airwaves, but because the data is on the public airwaves AND broadcasters have agreed to let the public use that data under certain conditions. This isn't quite the legal posture of the dispute, but it's the public policy essence of it.
- mpyne 13y ago
  > If it is the latter and that argument can be used, then would it be legal to capture cellphone communication and any wireless data? Actually, yes. Except that Congress has specifically made that action illegal if not done under a specific list of exceptions (e.g. law enforcement with a warrant, intelligence agencies collecting foreign intelligence under an authorization from someone at their agency with that authority, etc.)
- lnanek2 13y ago
  They do have a legal argument. They have one antenna for each user, so they claim they are just renting you the antenna, basically. Just as if you had rented the antenna and laid a long cable to their facility, then just used internet to get to the antenna instead of a cable. There are legal protections for encrypted stuff, heck the DMCA prevents bypassing just a copyright flag nowadays when backing up DVDs. But these are public TV channels anyone can watch with an antenna and the company seems to have legally constructed the same situation for its users.
- DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
  They're talking about the stations broadcast in the part of the spectrum specifically set aside for public, free, over-the-air watching of the stations. You know, what your TV tunes in to if you just have an antenna. Aereo sells a service where they operate an antenna on your behalf, and essentially run a long cable to your house from one of their locations, where the antenna is located. Your comment shows that you didn't really look in to the argument being presented before commenting - because it instantly latches on to an untrue hypothetical as to why you shouldn't agree.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  The programs are transmitted as a broadcast for public consumption. Cellphone and wireless are point to point communications. The argument isn't unsound, just unclearly stated.
yahelc 13y ago
SCOTUSBlog has a great deepdive into the case: http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/04/argument-preview-free-tv-at-a-bargain-price/ http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/04/argument-preview-free-tv-a...
- dublinben 13y ago
  It's really surprising that nobody else has mentioned the Cablevision ruling. That is the exact precedent that Aereo has designed their system to comply with.
  - joezydeco 13y ago
    It gets mentioned, and then another HN story pops up on Aereo and we have to review the facts and stances over again. And again.
Shivetya 13y ago
One oddity here is that broadcast tv is treated differently than cable/satellite only channels. the FCC enforces different rules regarding advertising and programming restrictions than what can and does appear on cable. Mostly this is restricted to political ads. From that standpoint of broadcast being so highly regulated because the airwaves are public property do the stations who use that medium retain any rights to what they broadcast? If the FCC can claim jurisdiction and tell you what you cannot broadcast over "public airwaves" because is public property does the act of freely putting your shows on it mean you give up the right to control unaltered reuse or differing uses?
- jarrett 13y ago
  > does the act of freely putting your shows on it mean you give up the right to control unaltered reuse or differing uses? No, by law it does not. The copyright remains in effect. As discussed in the article, broadcasting grants certain rights to end users, but it certainly doesn't wipe out all the copyright holder's rights.
  - davorak 13y ago
    Aereo's they are just a middle man for the end user. The end user is using that antenna and for convince is sending it over the internet to wherever they are. It is perfectly legal for an end user in this case to make a video recording and watch it later for personal use. Or even digitize it and watch it on their computer. In Aereo case that digital copy is also sent over the internet to another computer for personal viewing. In this case no copyrights seem to be broken.
higherpurpose 13y ago
Why did the government have to intervene here? Just because the current administration is a tight friend of the RIAA? It seems to be doing it quite a lot lately. Imagine Monsanto suing some farmers, and then the government intervening in the trial to help Monsanto. There's just something wrong about that. The government should stick to its own cases and lawsuits, not intervene in 3rd party lawsuits.
- DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
  I mean, they already induced a foreign state to violate that state's laws in order to harass a resident of that state, seize assets and information which they had no legal claim to, and then after a politically motivated prosecution fell apart, presented all the illegally obtained evidence to their industry friends so they could use it as the basis of a lawsuit against the same person. Why would we expect any better here?
  - DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
    I'm curious what specifically people think is inaccurate about my description of the Kim Dotcom events.
kodablah 13y ago
"They cringe at the thought of paying $130 a month for cable so Boorstin won’t miss Nationals baseball games. [...] With Aereo, baseball streaming site MLB.com, and maybe another app, they would gladly use the Internet for all their video news and entertainment." Nope, if the Nationals aren't over the air in DC (likely not most of the time), and you live in DC, it will be blacked out. Aereo does not affect this in any way.
- orky56 13y ago
  Of course it does. Someone can subscribe to an antenna in a different market than DC, specifically to get a nationally televised game that is NOT blacked out in the local market. This is would be my biggest draw to Aereo.
  - lanaius 13y ago
    Your credit card billing address has to match your service area.
    - x0054 13y ago
      Get a prepaid credit card and claim any address you want.
      - kodablah 13y ago
        And they could get a remote VPN/tunnel today. Workarounds exist with and without Aereo yet the article makes it seem like this case significantly affects regular cable sports watchers which is not the case.
      - venomsnake 13y ago
        And commit 30-40 CFAA and wire fraud felonies according to an overzealous DA in the process. //just to show how absurd the situation with computer crime right now is.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
brk 13y ago
I've followed the Aereo stuff going on. Not heavily, but with more curiosity than not. One question I've never seen fully addressed about the technology: are they literally claiming to capture a signal directly from the tiny antenna and encode/route that specific signal to a specific user with no other filtering/enhancement/etc. in between? Knowing how hard it is to get a good DTV signal, it seems unlikely that a bunch of tiny antennas buried in a data center are going to get reliably good signals. It would seem like what they are doing is capturing the signal from a better source, and then maintaining a batch of crappy antennas just to claim a 1:1 ratio of antennas to customers. Does anyone know with reliable data how the technology really works?
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  > It would seem like what they are doing is capturing the signal from a better source, and then maintaining a batch of crappy antennas just to claim a 1:1 ratio of antennas to customers. I'm not an expert, but to some extent, isn't that the same thing? Because of the way radio transmission works, any receiver is also a (re-)transmitter. It might be that maintaining several small antennae actually improves the signal.
  - veemjeem 13y ago
    Not just that, the antennae are located closer to the transmission source so you don't need your own antenna on some rooftop. Quality is higher since it just gets streamed to your location. It's kind of like having an antenna on the top of your own roof, and then using something like mythtv as the dvr to stream the content to your current location (which could be far away from home).
- Suspect 13y ago
  They lease space in the same building as the source.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    Interesting. I wonder if they have space in Willis/Sears Tower in Chicago. Disclaimer: My parent company throws its signal via microwave off the antenna on that building.
filmgirlcw 13y ago
Assuming the court doesn't punt the decision (the way it did with Bilsky), this has the potential to be the most important broadcasting case since Betamax. I've been following and covering Aereo since its NYC launch in Feb 2012 and regardless of who wins, the implications for the future of broadcast are huge.
sdegutis 13y ago
Who needs TV for entertainment anyway? That old Maine saying comes to mind: use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without.
selmnoo 13y ago
If Aereo loses, there's a nice little thing they can do. They should stop offering the streaming service, and start selling this thing (either recreate a similar competing device, or simply become a reseller!): http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_broadway.html http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_broadway.html - a TV-signal-receiver/streamer-in-one device -- which can stream either over your local Wi-fi, or across the interwebs so you can watch remotely when you're out of the house. And then people can use this thing for themselves and their friends and families... at no cost! Aereo should ship the thing to all current consumers immediately after losing, and lock everyone into a contract of 8$/month payments for however long it takes to recoup the full $150 cost of the device. I'll be happy if people get this device over a service because it goes a nice distance to finally putting the power of cloud in the consumer's hand.
- Splendor 13y ago
  Aereo is for people who can't put up an antenna (or don't want to). This device requires an antenna.
  - selmnoo 13y ago
    You must have at least one friend or family member who can put up an antenna though, right? Give it to them, and get a streamcast going! Sure it's five minutes of hassle setting the thing up, but once it's setup it's all free.
    - bri3d 13y ago
      My experience with doing this with friends is that most US ISPs have awful upload jitter, plus (increasingly) data caps as well. This might work for lucky fiber-to-home subscribers but every time I've tried on Comcast, a giant buffer (10 seconds or more) is required to hide the jitter, and sometimes the neighbors start seeding something on BitTorrent and the stream will still cut out. Plus there are a lot of contingencies that require an increasingly complex technical solution. First you have to deal with whatever router configuration / NAT is present. And sometimes your friend's IP changes, and you're stuck setting up dynamic DNS or a reverse proxy. The Broadway box was generally panned in reviews for not including a workaround for these networking issues, and I suspect the technical complexity of friend-to-friend streaming is why TV broadcasters have never been worried about it in the past. IPv6 will hopefully help solve the addressing and NAT issues, but the generally awful quality of US home connections remains a big problem.
drawkbox 13y ago
You'd think broadcast and cable companies would embrace doing their own competitive product to extend their reach. Instead they still to this day create a false demand by holding back American innovation, that only works if their aren't other alternatives. If broadcast/cable want to live on they need to get to innovating and improving service, not fighting everything that challenges their kingdom. I hope Aereo once again opens up competition on overpriced and monopolistic practices. Cable and broadcast had an immense lead when broadband internet innovated (with the help of taxpayer money and rights to provide the service they agreed to), then they stopped, got fat and turned to hogs. Monopolies can sometimes move everyone forward for a time (At&T/telcos leading to software/C/C++, Microsoft spreading computing and internet, possibly Apple and the smart phone initially) but eventually, if the leaders aren't innovating and get too comfortable, they need to be jolted awake as they are no longer the leading innovators nor the future.
- warfangle 13y ago
  Broadcast and cable companies being competitive with innovation? Do you live in the same reality as the rest of us? ;) Why innovate when you can legislate?
- rayiner 13y ago
  The broadcasters aren't monopolies, not in an age where the broadcast medium itself (as distinct from the content) is increasingly irrelevant. Only 7% of households rely on over-the-air TV: https://www.ce.org/News/News-Releases/Press-Releases/2013-Press-Releases/Only-Seven-Percent-of-TV-Households-Rely-on-Over-t.aspx https://www.ce.org/News/News-Releases/Press-Releases/2013-Pr.... The networks continue to matter because they offer products that people want to buy (movies and TV shows). These products are so compelling, that very few people have managed to offer compelling alternatives. E.g. people don't just want a doctor show, they want "House." They don't just want a sitcom, they want "How I Met Your Mother." It's not "innovation" to simply figure out new ways to take popular products and distribute them to consumers without paying the creators. I applaud Netflix and Amazon for going down the path of real competition. Shows like "House of Cards" and "Alpha House" are rare alternatives to the media offered by established companies that actually receive good critical and audience reception.
steven777400 13y ago
This was tried before with the "rent a DVD and player" streaming service (Zediva [1]). I would be shocked if Aereo won this case. The courts look strongly at the intention of the law; it's not the same "literally as-written" interpretation that technical folk tend to take of things. From the Zediva case: "The courts ruled that it was irrelevant that the videos were streamed to one customer at a time in his private hotel room; the service still transmitted videos 'to the public,'" [1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/08/judge-orders-shutdown-of-dvd-streaming-service-zediva/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/08/judge-orders-shut...
- xhrpost 13y ago
  I remember reading about this. Even from the "intention of the law" perspective though, I still didn't get the argument of the MPAA. How is it that a private individual choosing a title to watch for themselves constitute as a "public" display of the work? They were renting their own DVD player and legit movie disc, something anyone can do physically if they so choose by going to a couple stores.
  - CamperBob2 13y ago
    Because the MPAA rents its own US Senators, that's why.
    - EGreg 13y ago
      Not supreme court justices though
  - danielweber 13y ago
    Because the company is doing the performance to the public, even if they did a little dog-and-pony show to try and make it seem like it wasn't. I think there are distinctions with the Aereo case, though. I could see Aereo winning despite the remote-watching-DVD case, and I was very confident in correctly predicting how the DVD case would turn out.
    - 13y ago
dalek2point3 13y ago
Katie Couric did this great interview of Chet Kanojia on Yahoo that is definitely worth checking out. http://news.yahoo.com/video/aereo-broadcast-tv-worst-nightmare-032204252.html http://news.yahoo.com/video/aereo-broadcast-tv-worst-nightma... In it, the Aereo CEO admits to being "anxious" because the $100 million on the company is essentially down the drain depending on what the Supreme Court decides. He says, this is mainly due to the 110-odd people who work at the firm. Fair-nuff -- seems like a reasonable sort-a guy.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

129 points by xhrpost 13y ago

This is a confusing headline, to me— I'd phrase it 'Supreme Court to decide on Aereo, a startup that could reshape the TV industry'

jisaacks 13y ago
I thought the same thing, that they had decided. This is the title of the original article though.
- dang 13y ago
  HN's guidelines call for changing the original title when it's linkbait or misleading. This one was misleading, so we changed it.

joesb 13y ago

> But Aereo argues that it is entitled to draw freely from programs transmitted on public airwaves. Are they talking about the data being broadcasted in public spectrum? Or that the wave travel through public air and atmosphere? If it is the latter and that argument can be used, then would it be legal to capture cellphone communication and any wireless data? I just don't think one should blindly accept unsound argument even if it would result in the change one wants.

endianswap 13y ago
They're just re-transmitting normal OTA broadcasts of TV channels intended for end-users.
rayiner 13y ago
Their argument isn't that they should be able to use the data freely because it's broadcast over the public airwaves. The relevance of the public airwaves is that there is an existing compromise between broadcasters and the public such that the public is entitled to watch certain content for free over the air, in return for broadcasters being allowed to use the public airwaves. What Aereo is arguing is that their service falls within this existing compromise, because it's no different than attaching a rabbit-ear to your TV with a really long cable. In other words, it's okay not just because the data is on the public airwaves, but because the data is on the public airwaves AND broadcasters have agreed to let the public use that data under certain conditions. This isn't quite the legal posture of the dispute, but it's the public policy essence of it.
mpyne 13y ago
> If it is the latter and that argument can be used, then would it be legal to capture cellphone communication and any wireless data? Actually, yes. Except that Congress has specifically made that action illegal if not done under a specific list of exceptions (e.g. law enforcement with a warrant, intelligence agencies collecting foreign intelligence under an authorization from someone at their agency with that authority, etc.)
lnanek2 13y ago
They do have a legal argument. They have one antenna for each user, so they claim they are just renting you the antenna, basically. Just as if you had rented the antenna and laid a long cable to their facility, then just used internet to get to the antenna instead of a cable. There are legal protections for encrypted stuff, heck the DMCA prevents bypassing just a copyright flag nowadays when backing up DVDs. But these are public TV channels anyone can watch with an antenna and the company seems to have legally constructed the same situation for its users.
DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
They're talking about the stations broadcast in the part of the spectrum specifically set aside for public, free, over-the-air watching of the stations. You know, what your TV tunes in to if you just have an antenna. Aereo sells a service where they operate an antenna on your behalf, and essentially run a long cable to your house from one of their locations, where the antenna is located. Your comment shows that you didn't really look in to the argument being presented before commenting - because it instantly latches on to an untrue hypothetical as to why you shouldn't agree.
Dylan16807 13y ago
The programs are transmitted as a broadcast for public consumption. Cellphone and wireless are point to point communications. The argument isn't unsound, just unclearly stated.

yahelc 13y ago

SCOTUSBlog has a great deepdive into the case: http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/04/argument-preview-free-tv-at-a-bargain-price/ http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/04/argument-preview-free-tv-a...

dublinben 13y ago
It's really surprising that nobody else has mentioned the Cablevision ruling. That is the exact precedent that Aereo has designed their system to comply with.
- joezydeco 13y ago
  It gets mentioned, and then another HN story pops up on Aereo and we have to review the facts and stances over again. And again.

Shivetya 13y ago

One oddity here is that broadcast tv is treated differently than cable/satellite only channels. the FCC enforces different rules regarding advertising and programming restrictions than what can and does appear on cable. Mostly this is restricted to political ads. From that standpoint of broadcast being so highly regulated because the airwaves are public property do the stations who use that medium retain any rights to what they broadcast? If the FCC can claim jurisdiction and tell you what you cannot broadcast over "public airwaves" because is public property does the act of freely putting your shows on it mean you give up the right to control unaltered reuse or differing uses?

jarrett 13y ago
> does the act of freely putting your shows on it mean you give up the right to control unaltered reuse or differing uses? No, by law it does not. The copyright remains in effect. As discussed in the article, broadcasting grants certain rights to end users, but it certainly doesn't wipe out all the copyright holder's rights.
- davorak 13y ago
  Aereo's they are just a middle man for the end user. The end user is using that antenna and for convince is sending it over the internet to wherever they are. It is perfectly legal for an end user in this case to make a video recording and watch it later for personal use. Or even digitize it and watch it on their computer. In Aereo case that digital copy is also sent over the internet to another computer for personal viewing. In this case no copyrights seem to be broken.

higherpurpose 13y ago

Why did the government have to intervene here? Just because the current administration is a tight friend of the RIAA? It seems to be doing it quite a lot lately. Imagine Monsanto suing some farmers, and then the government intervening in the trial to help Monsanto. There's just something wrong about that. The government should stick to its own cases and lawsuits, not intervene in 3rd party lawsuits.

DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
I mean, they already induced a foreign state to violate that state's laws in order to harass a resident of that state, seize assets and information which they had no legal claim to, and then after a politically motivated prosecution fell apart, presented all the illegally obtained evidence to their industry friends so they could use it as the basis of a lawsuit against the same person. Why would we expect any better here?
- DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
  I'm curious what specifically people think is inaccurate about my description of the Kim Dotcom events.

kodablah 13y ago

"They cringe at the thought of paying $130 a month for cable so Boorstin won’t miss Nationals baseball games. [...] With Aereo, baseball streaming site MLB.com, and maybe another app, they would gladly use the Internet for all their video news and entertainment." Nope, if the Nationals aren't over the air in DC (likely not most of the time), and you live in DC, it will be blacked out. Aereo does not affect this in any way.

orky56 13y ago
Of course it does. Someone can subscribe to an antenna in a different market than DC, specifically to get a nationally televised game that is NOT blacked out in the local market. This is would be my biggest draw to Aereo.
- lanaius 13y ago
  Your credit card billing address has to match your service area.
  - x0054 13y ago
    Get a prepaid credit card and claim any address you want.
    - kodablah 13y ago
      And they could get a remote VPN/tunnel today. Workarounds exist with and without Aereo yet the article makes it seem like this case significantly affects regular cable sports watchers which is not the case.
    - venomsnake 13y ago
      And commit 30-40 CFAA and wire fraud felonies according to an overzealous DA in the process. //just to show how absurd the situation with computer crime right now is.
Dylan16807 13y ago

brk 13y ago

I've followed the Aereo stuff going on. Not heavily, but with more curiosity than not. One question I've never seen fully addressed about the technology: are they literally claiming to capture a signal directly from the tiny antenna and encode/route that specific signal to a specific user with no other filtering/enhancement/etc. in between? Knowing how hard it is to get a good DTV signal, it seems unlikely that a bunch of tiny antennas buried in a data center are going to get reliably good signals. It would seem like what they are doing is capturing the signal from a better source, and then maintaining a batch of crappy antennas just to claim a 1:1 ratio of antennas to customers. Does anyone know with reliable data how the technology really works?

chimeracoder 13y ago
> It would seem like what they are doing is capturing the signal from a better source, and then maintaining a batch of crappy antennas just to claim a 1:1 ratio of antennas to customers. I'm not an expert, but to some extent, isn't that the same thing? Because of the way radio transmission works, any receiver is also a (re-)transmitter. It might be that maintaining several small antennae actually improves the signal.
- veemjeem 13y ago
  Not just that, the antennae are located closer to the transmission source so you don't need your own antenna on some rooftop. Quality is higher since it just gets streamed to your location. It's kind of like having an antenna on the top of your own roof, and then using something like mythtv as the dvr to stream the content to your current location (which could be far away from home).
Suspect 13y ago
They lease space in the same building as the source.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  Interesting. I wonder if they have space in Willis/Sears Tower in Chicago. Disclaimer: My parent company throws its signal via microwave off the antenna on that building.

filmgirlcw 13y ago

Assuming the court doesn't punt the decision (the way it did with Bilsky), this has the potential to be the most important broadcasting case since Betamax. I've been following and covering Aereo since its NYC launch in Feb 2012 and regardless of who wins, the implications for the future of broadcast are huge.

sdegutis 13y ago

Who needs TV for entertainment anyway? That old Maine saying comes to mind: use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without.

selmnoo 13y ago

If Aereo loses, there's a nice little thing they can do. They should stop offering the streaming service, and start selling this thing (either recreate a similar competing device, or simply become a reseller!): http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_broadway.html http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_broadway.html - a TV-signal-receiver/streamer-in-one device -- which can stream either over your local Wi-fi, or across the interwebs so you can watch remotely when you're out of the house. And then people can use this thing for themselves and their friends and families... at no cost! Aereo should ship the thing to all current consumers immediately after losing, and lock everyone into a contract of 8$/month payments for however long it takes to recoup the full $150 cost of the device. I'll be happy if people get this device over a service because it goes a nice distance to finally putting the power of cloud in the consumer's hand.

Splendor 13y ago
Aereo is for people who can't put up an antenna (or don't want to). This device requires an antenna.
- selmnoo 13y ago
  You must have at least one friend or family member who can put up an antenna though, right? Give it to them, and get a streamcast going! Sure it's five minutes of hassle setting the thing up, but once it's setup it's all free.
  - bri3d 13y ago
    My experience with doing this with friends is that most US ISPs have awful upload jitter, plus (increasingly) data caps as well. This might work for lucky fiber-to-home subscribers but every time I've tried on Comcast, a giant buffer (10 seconds or more) is required to hide the jitter, and sometimes the neighbors start seeding something on BitTorrent and the stream will still cut out. Plus there are a lot of contingencies that require an increasingly complex technical solution. First you have to deal with whatever router configuration / NAT is present. And sometimes your friend's IP changes, and you're stuck setting up dynamic DNS or a reverse proxy. The Broadway box was generally panned in reviews for not including a workaround for these networking issues, and I suspect the technical complexity of friend-to-friend streaming is why TV broadcasters have never been worried about it in the past. IPv6 will hopefully help solve the addressing and NAT issues, but the generally awful quality of US home connections remains a big problem.

drawkbox 13y ago

You'd think broadcast and cable companies would embrace doing their own competitive product to extend their reach. Instead they still to this day create a false demand by holding back American innovation, that only works if their aren't other alternatives. If broadcast/cable want to live on they need to get to innovating and improving service, not fighting everything that challenges their kingdom. I hope Aereo once again opens up competition on overpriced and monopolistic practices. Cable and broadcast had an immense lead when broadband internet innovated (with the help of taxpayer money and rights to provide the service they agreed to), then they stopped, got fat and turned to hogs. Monopolies can sometimes move everyone forward for a time (At&T/telcos leading to software/C/C++, Microsoft spreading computing and internet, possibly Apple and the smart phone initially) but eventually, if the leaders aren't innovating and get too comfortable, they need to be jolted awake as they are no longer the leading innovators nor the future.

warfangle 13y ago
Broadcast and cable companies being competitive with innovation? Do you live in the same reality as the rest of us? ;) Why innovate when you can legislate?
rayiner 13y ago
The broadcasters aren't monopolies, not in an age where the broadcast medium itself (as distinct from the content) is increasingly irrelevant. Only 7% of households rely on over-the-air TV: https://www.ce.org/News/News-Releases/Press-Releases/2013-Press-Releases/Only-Seven-Percent-of-TV-Households-Rely-on-Over-t.aspx https://www.ce.org/News/News-Releases/Press-Releases/2013-Pr.... The networks continue to matter because they offer products that people want to buy (movies and TV shows). These products are so compelling, that very few people have managed to offer compelling alternatives. E.g. people don't just want a doctor show, they want "House." They don't just want a sitcom, they want "How I Met Your Mother." It's not "innovation" to simply figure out new ways to take popular products and distribute them to consumers without paying the creators. I applaud Netflix and Amazon for going down the path of real competition. Shows like "House of Cards" and "Alpha House" are rare alternatives to the media offered by established companies that actually receive good critical and audience reception.

steven777400 13y ago

This was tried before with the "rent a DVD and player" streaming service (Zediva [1]). I would be shocked if Aereo won this case. The courts look strongly at the intention of the law; it's not the same "literally as-written" interpretation that technical folk tend to take of things. From the Zediva case: "The courts ruled that it was irrelevant that the videos were streamed to one customer at a time in his private hotel room; the service still transmitted videos 'to the public,'" [1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/08/judge-orders-shutdown-of-dvd-streaming-service-zediva/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/08/judge-orders-shut...

xhrpost 13y ago
I remember reading about this. Even from the "intention of the law" perspective though, I still didn't get the argument of the MPAA. How is it that a private individual choosing a title to watch for themselves constitute as a "public" display of the work? They were renting their own DVD player and legit movie disc, something anyone can do physically if they so choose by going to a couple stores.
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  Because the MPAA rents its own US Senators, that's why.
  - EGreg 13y ago
    Not supreme court justices though
- danielweber 13y ago
  Because the company is doing the performance to the public, even if they did a little dog-and-pony show to try and make it seem like it wasn't. I think there are distinctions with the Aereo case, though. I could see Aereo winning despite the remote-watching-DVD case, and I was very confident in correctly predicting how the DVD case would turn out.
  - 13y ago

dalek2point3 13y ago

Katie Couric did this great interview of Chet Kanojia on Yahoo that is definitely worth checking out. http://news.yahoo.com/video/aereo-broadcast-tv-worst-nightmare-032204252.html http://news.yahoo.com/video/aereo-broadcast-tv-worst-nightma... In it, the Aereo CEO admits to being "anxious" because the $100 million on the company is essentially down the drain depending on what the Supreme Court decides. He says, this is mainly due to the 110-odd people who work at the firm. Fair-nuff -- seems like a reasonable sort-a guy.

deleted 13y ago

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