9 ms·

If you read the decision, you will see that you are absolutely allowed to do this. The length of the antenna or wire has nothing to do with anything. What is

• shmerl 12y ago
  What is a semantic difference between setting your own antenna and someone setting it for you and charging for the service? I.e. the service of renting of that antenna? Why the second is suddenly considered bad by the law? I'm not arguing about whether the law applies, I'm asking to explain the logic of the law which intents to forbid such service.
  • harryh 12y ago
    The logic of the ruling is that Aereo, if you looked at it as a black box, was essentially acting as a cable company. The internal workings of its technology aren't as important as the actual functionality being provided.
    • shmerl 12y ago
      That's not what I was asking. The commenter above said: > They made the same claim Aereo is making now - we're not rebroadcasting, we're just a big antenna connected to multiple homes. The law was written specifically to address this, but it was written in a generic way to avoid loopholes... like exactly the loophole Aereo claimed existed. I was asking to explain the logic of that law. What is wrong with renting the antenna? Why it should be forbidden while using the personal antenna is permitted?
      • Dylan16807 12y ago
        Well if you trust the ruling quoted in http://www.mercurynews.com/rss/ci_17625637 http://www.mercurynews.com/rss/ci_17625637 then the distinction is that a transmission from equipment you own to equipment you own is private, but transmission from equipment you rent to equipment you own is public. Don't ask me to explain why.
        • shmerl 12y ago
          This area looks like a mess. What is the intent of that law to begin with? To charge for special right to "perform" the copyrighted work in public. I don't really get why this principle is extended to delivering the "performance" to the single user. Isn't it about "public" i.e. multiple aspect needs to be present?
          • harryh 12y ago
            The intent of the law is to allow over the air broadcasts (seen as a public good) to exist without completely undermining the ability of content creators to get paid.
            • Dylan16807 12y ago
              How does a stereotypical cable company undermine payment for the public performance? They are only assisting in the reception of the performance for people with bad antenna locations. The stereotypical cable company doesn't extend the range, either, it's just a shared antenna.
              • harryh 12y ago
                Cable companies pay the broadcasters rebroadcasting fees.
                • Dylan16807 12y ago
                  I meant before the law was passed, when they didn't pay those fees. I cannot figure out how payment is undermined on a free broadcast. Can you explain how to me?
    • Dylan16807 12y ago
      If you draw a black box around an antenna salesman and the equipment they've installed, you also get something that appears to be a cable company.
      • dllthomas 12y ago
        Not if you need more than one customer to be "a cable company".
        • Dylan16807 12y ago
          Said antenna salesman would have sold antennas to much more than one household.
          • dllthomas 12y ago
            But he does not continue to own the antenna, and you do not continue to pay him.
            • shmerl 12y ago
              What if he rents you an antenna, but you install it in your house?
              • dllthomas 12y ago
                I don't think that's clear, and it would probably call for a new ruling, informed by the particulars of the case...
              • vibrolax 12y ago
                The rental of an antenna is not a public performance. Offering a subscription streaming service including broadcast content to the public is a public performance.
      • harryh 12y ago
        I think there's a big different between paying money all at once to buy and install hardware that I own vs paying a recurring fee for a service.
    • belorn 12y ago
      That is the argument of the ruling, but it seems arbitrary defined. I would ask what law grounds the definition of the black box. If one would try to do the same to a illegal content hosted on a website, where should I start drawing this box? At my ISP, since it is the edge where I as a customer receives the content? At the websites ISP, since it is the one that broadcast the content? The coo-location of the server, as it is there that the mechanism for broadcast is happening? The hardware, which produced broadcast? Or is it the person who acted on the machine in order to create the broadcast? As with a onion, each layer covers the internal workings of the next one. The actual functionality being provided (ie content) is the same at each step.
      • harryh 12y ago
        Welcome to the world of common law. It's not source code with precisely defined rules. It's a set of values adjudicated by judges attempting to issue rulings that most would consider fair.
        • davorak 12y ago
          > It's not source code with precisely defined rules. I do not see anyone making the argument that it is. > It's a set of values adjudicated by judges attempting to issue rulings that most would consider fair. belorn is offering arguments/evidence that an unfair decision was reached by the court in this case.
• toomuchtodo 12y ago
  Aereo now sells me the antenna for $100. They charge me a "colocation" fee. Aereo is now following the law according to this decision. They still don't need to pay broadcasters. It was an incredibly stupid decision. I could offer the exact same service. I will point you to a ~$160 hardware device that I will colocate in a datacenter in Chicago for you for $15/month. I'll provide power, networking, and unlimited bandwidth. How is this any different?
  • toomuchtodo 12y ago
    Continued from my above post: If you'd be interested in this sort of setup, I would be curious (my details in my profile). I'm already waist deep in several other projects, but I'd love to gauge the response. I already have datacenter space; I could be providing service to 80-100 people in two weeks with my current resources (i.e. Chicago-based datacenter space). Not looking to compete with Aereo; definitely looking to disrupt protectionist copyright rulings.
  • maccard 12y ago
    > How is this any different? People will pay more for it, so Aereo will charge what they know they can
• wooter 12y ago
  Honestly, I don't see how you justified the decision and agree that it is "incredibly stupid." Am I not allowed to pay someone to set up my antenna? If I do should that involve other cable companies at all? "The entire reason this law was written is because under an old law, cable companies ("community antenna television" in that day) were setting up antennas and running cable to multiple homes, charging the users for it, and not paying anything to the broadcasters/copyright holders." I don't see what is wrong with this. Without that company, that person wouldn't be able to access the content - which is, itself, a "public performance." Otherwise, the person wouldn't be willing to pay for it. Either way, its an agreement between two private parties as to how they wish to access public information. This is protectionism.
  • exelius 12y ago
    This is copyright. Copyright holders are allowed to assign reasonable restrictions on the content they broadcast publicly in order to monetize that content as they see fit. One of those restrictions is that the content broadcast over public airwaves may not be rebroadcast or retransmitted for non-private use. If your business model is encoding and retransmitting that content over the Internet, that's not private use. Considering the entire content industry's business model is based on controlling the distribution of the content that they own, there's no way this decision could have gone any other way. If you fundamentally disagree with the content industry's right to control distribution of content that they legally own (or at least control copyright to), then you are free not to consume any of it. I have no pity for Aereo here. They based their business model on a legal technicality, and SCOTUS simply applied an updated technological interpretation to an old law. Their investors were big time media guys (Barry Diller was a founder of both Fox and USA networks) who knew the risks they were taking: it didn't pan out for them. Aereo is not a story of a plucky startup fighting the system; it's just one part of the system fighting another part of the system over who gets more money. Had Aereo won this decision, the real winners would have been Comcast, DirecTV, AT&T and Verizon.
    • baddox 12y ago
      Copyright is protectionism. By definition.
• fennecfoxen 12y ago
  Quite right. If anything, it's the law that's stupid. :)
• coldpie 12y ago
  > you are absolutely allowed to do this. So you agree that I have a legal right to accept the OTA transmission in New York, to make a personal copy of the transmission, and send that copy to myself in Minnesota for viewing. This is precisely what I do by hiring Aereo. There is no difference except I pay someone else to do the development and maintenance since I lack the skills or free time to travel to New York and set this up myself. Suppose we look at it through a slightly different lens. I take a file to which I have a legal right, say some copyrighted material that I have paid for. I upload this file to my personal Dropbox account, which I share with no one. Then I travel across the country and download it for viewing. Has Dropbox just committed copyright violation? If not, how does this differ from the scenario I gave in the first two paragraphs, where apparently Aereo was committing a copyright violation?
  • alexqgb 12y ago
    If the person you're paying is doing the work, then it's obviously not for their personal use. It's for yours. So they're doing it for money on someone else's behalf, which throws the "personal, non-commercial use" argument straight out the window. Moving on to Dropbox. Dropbox has no involvement in the selection of the file in question, or even the type of file, and moreover, they're not the ones to place it on their system, you are. Aero, on the other hand, knows exactly what they're receiving because that's what their entire system is explicitly and narrowly set up to receive. They can't claim ignorance as to what they're capturing when their basic sales proposition hinges on a specific declaration as to what - exactly - they're capturing and re-selling. In other words, the arms-length relationship between the service provider and content that protects Dropbox under the DMCA's Safe Harbor provision does not exist with Aero.
    • coldpie 12y ago
      > If the person you're paying is doing the work, then it's obviously not for their personal use. It's for yours. So they're doing it for money on someone else's behalf, which throws the "personal, non-commercial use" argument straight out the window. Boy is Geek Squad going to be in trouble when it's discovered how many TV installations they've assisted with are used for pirated material. > They can't claim ignorance as to what they're capturing when their basic sales proposition hinges on a specific declaration as to what - exactly - they're capturing and re-selling. I don't understand the distinction. In both scenarios, capturing an OTA broadcast and purchasing a digital file, I have the right to own and make personal copies of the content. I don't see how the law can make a distinction based on how I acquired the content in the first place, provided I have both of those rights. Aereo doesn't need to claim ignorance because I have never broken the law. I have the right to accept the OTA broadcast and to store, transmit, and view personal copies of the broadcast.
• acjohnson55 12y ago
  If you read the dissent, you'll see a perfectly logical elaboration on the other side of the argument. The difference between CATV and Aereo is that Aereo leases you exclusive usage of an antenna, instead of retransmitting the single stream to a large audience (i.e. a public performance).