5 ms·

In Aereo, Supreme Court Rightly Skeptical About Becoming Technology Regulators

23 points by gasull 12y ago

SeanLuke 12y ago
Perhaps an EFF news release isn't the most unbiased source for a factual claim of the type made in your link headline.
- nitrogen 12y ago
  That is the headline used on the EFF original site.
  - alexkiritz 12y ago
    They're suggesting that EFF is biased in this.
    - Natsu 12y ago
      Which is silly in a number of ways. The only editorializing is the part saying they're "rightly" skeptical. I don't think anyone is disputing that they asked some skeptical questions and said questions are quoted therein. That aside, being harshly questioned is not necessarily predictive of which way they will vote. If anything, they're harder on the side they rule against and are using the questioning to find the strongest arguments to put in their rulings.
pbreit 12y ago
I wish this case had been more focused on what Aereo specifically is doing. I found the concerns about cloud computing to be a needless distraction. IANAL but it looked to me like Aereo made a serious error in not simply arguing that it is an antenna with a (very) long cord. I guess they thought they could scare the court into allowing Aereo in order to avoid some unintended consequence but I just don't see that. Coupling it with the DVR functionality also seemed like a needless mistake. I'd like to know what the court would think about a service that really is not much more than an antenna with a long cord. But doesn't seem like we will get that here.
- alloyed 12y ago
  From what I gathered, that is what they did try to do, only the Supreme Court wasn't buying it at all. Ars gives a few choicer quotes: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/at-oral-arguments-supreme-court-isnt-sold-on-aereo/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/at-oral-arguments... >"What the local antenna person doesn't do but you apparently could do... is with the same kind of device pick up every television signal in the world and send it... into a person's computer," said Justice Stephen Breyer. "And that sounds so much like what a CATV (Community Antenna TV) system does or what a satellite system does that it looks as if somehow you are escaping a constraint that's imposed upon them. That's what disturbs everyone." >Justice Elena Kagan noted that "from a user's perspective, it's exactly the same as if I'm watching cable."
  - delackner 12y ago
    That quote at the end from Kagan is just utterly damning. It sounds like a magistrate ordering the burning of a witch for the seeming similarity, from an observer's perspective, of a telephone and magic.
    - beedogs 12y ago
      It always worries me when a case that's even remotely technical makes it to the Supreme Court. Sometimes it feels like trying to teach a dog a card trick.
    - tzs 12y ago
      That analogy is a poor fit, because it is comparing an outcome (speaking over a great distance) with a mechanism (magic). The witch would be burned for using that mechanism, not for achieving that outcome. (The outcome might be used as evidence for the mechanism if people could conceive of no other mechanism for making a telephone). Kagan is suggesting that the outcome is what the law was trying to regulate, and so the mechanism used to achieve that outcome is not important. An analogy that would be more fitting would be to say that it sounds like applying an 1890 law against telephone harassment to an harassment that took place over a cell phone. I see the Kagan quote as utterly rational. Concentrating on the mechanism rather than the result is like saying it is OK to eat the meat of a deer if you capture it in a trap and then kill it by slitting its throat with a blade that has been blessed by a priest, but it is not OK to eat the meat of a deer if you kill it by an arrow shot.
diziet 12y ago
Is the EFF helping Aereo in this case?
- bertil 12y ago
  I believe they have been in the recent past: https://www.eff.org/cases/wnet-v-aereo https://www.eff.org/cases/wnet-v-aereo They also mention an amicus brief in the article, something that isn’t technically a legal defense but generally is the closest thing to it. From what I gather, EFF reports on cases that they care about, and would provide legal support if needed in addition to coverage. To answer a question that you haven’t asked: that would tend to support the idea that their coverage is biased. However, their bias is fairly transparent and well-known to HN readers; more importantly, I’m not familiar with a source providing that level of understanding with less bias (since Growker stopped blogging and Jay Zittrain hasn’t commented on this).

23 points by gasull 12y ago

SeanLuke 12y ago

Perhaps an EFF news release isn't the most unbiased source for a factual claim of the type made in your link headline.

nitrogen 12y ago
That is the headline used on the EFF original site.
- alexkiritz 12y ago
  They're suggesting that EFF is biased in this.
  - Natsu 12y ago
    Which is silly in a number of ways. The only editorializing is the part saying they're "rightly" skeptical. I don't think anyone is disputing that they asked some skeptical questions and said questions are quoted therein. That aside, being harshly questioned is not necessarily predictive of which way they will vote. If anything, they're harder on the side they rule against and are using the questioning to find the strongest arguments to put in their rulings.

pbreit 12y ago

I wish this case had been more focused on what Aereo specifically is doing. I found the concerns about cloud computing to be a needless distraction. IANAL but it looked to me like Aereo made a serious error in not simply arguing that it is an antenna with a (very) long cord. I guess they thought they could scare the court into allowing Aereo in order to avoid some unintended consequence but I just don't see that. Coupling it with the DVR functionality also seemed like a needless mistake. I'd like to know what the court would think about a service that really is not much more than an antenna with a long cord. But doesn't seem like we will get that here.

alloyed 12y ago
From what I gathered, that is what they did try to do, only the Supreme Court wasn't buying it at all. Ars gives a few choicer quotes: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/at-oral-arguments-supreme-court-isnt-sold-on-aereo/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/at-oral-arguments... >"What the local antenna person doesn't do but you apparently could do... is with the same kind of device pick up every television signal in the world and send it... into a person's computer," said Justice Stephen Breyer. "And that sounds so much like what a CATV (Community Antenna TV) system does or what a satellite system does that it looks as if somehow you are escaping a constraint that's imposed upon them. That's what disturbs everyone." >Justice Elena Kagan noted that "from a user's perspective, it's exactly the same as if I'm watching cable."
- delackner 12y ago
  That quote at the end from Kagan is just utterly damning. It sounds like a magistrate ordering the burning of a witch for the seeming similarity, from an observer's perspective, of a telephone and magic.
  - beedogs 12y ago
    It always worries me when a case that's even remotely technical makes it to the Supreme Court. Sometimes it feels like trying to teach a dog a card trick.
  - tzs 12y ago
    That analogy is a poor fit, because it is comparing an outcome (speaking over a great distance) with a mechanism (magic). The witch would be burned for using that mechanism, not for achieving that outcome. (The outcome might be used as evidence for the mechanism if people could conceive of no other mechanism for making a telephone). Kagan is suggesting that the outcome is what the law was trying to regulate, and so the mechanism used to achieve that outcome is not important. An analogy that would be more fitting would be to say that it sounds like applying an 1890 law against telephone harassment to an harassment that took place over a cell phone. I see the Kagan quote as utterly rational. Concentrating on the mechanism rather than the result is like saying it is OK to eat the meat of a deer if you capture it in a trap and then kill it by slitting its throat with a blade that has been blessed by a priest, but it is not OK to eat the meat of a deer if you kill it by an arrow shot.

diziet 12y ago

Is the EFF helping Aereo in this case?

bertil 12y ago
I believe they have been in the recent past: https://www.eff.org/cases/wnet-v-aereo https://www.eff.org/cases/wnet-v-aereo They also mention an amicus brief in the article, something that isn’t technically a legal defense but generally is the closest thing to it. From what I gather, EFF reports on cases that they care about, and would provide legal support if needed in addition to coverage. To answer a question that you haven’t asked: that would tend to support the idea that their coverage is biased. However, their bias is fairly transparent and well-known to HN readers; more importantly, I’m not familiar with a source providing that level of understanding with less bias (since Growker stopped blogging and Jay Zittrain hasn’t commented on this).