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You are allowed to put an antenna on your roof. If your neighbor allows you to, you can put the antenna on his roof. You can even rent the antenna. You are e

You are allowed to put an antenna on your roof. If your neighbor allows you to, you can put the antenna on his roof. You can even rent the antenna. You are executing a private performance. You cannot subscribe to a streaming service that "rents you an antenna" unless the service licenses retransmission of the broadcaster's content.

kd0amg 12y ago
What is it about GP's scenario that makes it a private performance? It sure looks like he's "subscribing to a streaming service that 'rents [him] an antenna'".
- vibrolax 12y ago
  I hope I understand your question. I think the court has found that the "distribution for pay", i.e. "Cable TV" aspects of aereo's service outweighs the "antenna rental" aspects, and that makes it charging for a public performance. If you rent an antenna on top of the Empire State Building, digitize the signal, and set up your own means to stream it over the internet to your house in Peoria, that is probably a private performance. If you effectively sell someone access to the stream (like a Cable TV company), that is a public performance.
  - kd0amg 12y ago
    The part I'm confused about is the distinction between what the Empire State Building management is doing in this setup and selling someone access.
    - vibrolax 12y ago
      The SC ruled that the number of antennas or where they're located is not the heart of the issue. Aereo effectively supplied a data stream with broadcast content to subscribers (just like a cable tv company) without licensing the right to supply that content. The issue is commercial rights, not technological means. If you personally lease space for an antenna, and engineer a means to get it to your TV to watch, that's ok. If you sell access to the content stream, you are a cable TV company and have to pay redistribution license for the content.
      - kd0amg 12y ago
        Aereo effectively supplied a data stream with broadcast content to subscribers (just like a cable tv company) without licensing the right to supply that content. This is also what ESB would be doing by letting people rent antennas and streaming servers.
        mikeash 12y ago
        ESB would be renting antennas, and then what you do with them is your own business. Aereo is selling streaming TV service that just happens to use antennas in the backend. You might say, it's all the same in the end from a technical point of view. And you're right, but the law doesn't care about the technical point of view. From the legal point of view, Aereo is selling TV streaming, and must comply with laws for TV streaming.
        kd0amg 12y ago
        Ok, so if Aereo didn't have "TV service" all over it's marketing literature, they'd probably be in the clear?
        mikeash 12y ago
        I think the service itself would need to be changed as well. I think if they explicitly rented antennas and that was reflected in both their marketing and their actual service (e.g. providing a raw bitstream for a user-selected frequency rather than providing a video stream for a user-selected TV channel) then they'd be alright. This is just what I've been able to understand of the situation and I'm not an expert and could be terribly, terribly wrong, of course.

kd0amg 12y ago

What is it about GP's scenario that makes it a private performance? It sure looks like he's "subscribing to a streaming service that 'rents [him] an antenna'".

vibrolax 12y ago
I hope I understand your question. I think the court has found that the "distribution for pay", i.e. "Cable TV" aspects of aereo's service outweighs the "antenna rental" aspects, and that makes it charging for a public performance. If you rent an antenna on top of the Empire State Building, digitize the signal, and set up your own means to stream it over the internet to your house in Peoria, that is probably a private performance. If you effectively sell someone access to the stream (like a Cable TV company), that is a public performance.
- kd0amg 12y ago
  The part I'm confused about is the distinction between what the Empire State Building management is doing in this setup and selling someone access.
  - vibrolax 12y ago
    The SC ruled that the number of antennas or where they're located is not the heart of the issue. Aereo effectively supplied a data stream with broadcast content to subscribers (just like a cable tv company) without licensing the right to supply that content. The issue is commercial rights, not technological means. If you personally lease space for an antenna, and engineer a means to get it to your TV to watch, that's ok. If you sell access to the content stream, you are a cable TV company and have to pay redistribution license for the content.
    - kd0amg 12y ago
      Aereo effectively supplied a data stream with broadcast content to subscribers (just like a cable tv company) without licensing the right to supply that content. This is also what ESB would be doing by letting people rent antennas and streaming servers.
      - mikeash 12y ago
        ESB would be renting antennas, and then what you do with them is your own business. Aereo is selling streaming TV service that just happens to use antennas in the backend. You might say, it's all the same in the end from a technical point of view. And you're right, but the law doesn't care about the technical point of view. From the legal point of view, Aereo is selling TV streaming, and must comply with laws for TV streaming.
        kd0amg 12y ago
        Ok, so if Aereo didn't have "TV service" all over it's marketing literature, they'd probably be in the clear?
        mikeash 12y ago
        I think the service itself would need to be changed as well. I think if they explicitly rented antennas and that was reflected in both their marketing and their actual service (e.g. providing a raw bitstream for a user-selected frequency rather than providing a video stream for a user-selected TV channel) then they'd be alright. This is just what I've been able to understand of the situation and I'm not an expert and could be terribly, terribly wrong, of course.