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Are either one of those you paying a recurring fee to a company for a service that streams TV to you? No? Then you're fine.

by harryh 12y ago

baddox 12y ago
The mechanism is exactly the same.
- harryh 12y ago
  Doesn't matter. I know you don't like that but that's the way it is. Common law isn't source code running on a machine with perfectly defined rules, it's a set of values adjudicated by judges. They looked at Aereo and said: It looks like a cable company and quacks like a cable company so it's gotta act like a cable company. The precise configuration of equipment they have in their datacenter doesn't matter.
  - baddox 12y ago
    I'm not arguing that the law is the way I think it should be. I'm just arguing that the law is really dumb, and that it's pretty clear the legal system just makes decisions that serve the interests of powerful lobbies, rather than some intelligent or even discernible set of rules or principles.
    - harryh 12y ago
      I understand that you think it's really dumb but I think most people would disagree with you. When you get bogged down in the technical details of Aereo's datacenter configuration you miss the forrest for the trees. They're a company that streams TV into people's homes. Other companies (the cable companies) have to pay a fee to the content creators to do that. Why should it be different for Aereo? It costs a lot of money to make American Idol and CSI and to license the rights to the Super Bowl. The people that own that content should have a right to license it out in whatever manner they choose.
      - shmerl 12y ago
        Why is such streaming a "public performance" really? Aereo rents one antenna per user. Or public is now redefined?
        dragonwriter 12y ago
        > Or public is now redefined? Providing a service to the public vs. doing something privately, in law, is generally about doing the service commercially via an arms-length transaction in the general marketplace, not about the ratio of inputs to outputs. So, its not "redefinition" at all.
        shmerl 12y ago
        So, as others pointed out, renting an antenna should be violating the public performance restriction. Or renting a house with antenna for example, since it's commercial activity. It doesn't make sense though.
        dragonwriter 12y ago
        > So, as others pointed out, renting an antenna should be violating the public performance restriction. Or renting a house with antenna for example, since it's commercial activity. Offering antennas or houses for rent may be a service to the public, but if you the service doesn't involve any of the things that count as performance under the relevant provisions of the copyright act but only the tools to do it, its not a public performance. If Aereo was literally only renting physical attennas, the situation would be rather different than the actual service they were offering.
        shmerl 12y ago
        So what constitutes a mere tool, and what constitutes a performance then? > If Aereo was literally only renting physical attennas, the situation would be rather different than the actual service they were offering. Then there is an easy workaround. Let them rent out hardware explicitly. And users can control that hardware anyway they want (for example install some video streaming tools there, may be made by the same Aereo, and stream to themselves). What level of involvement from Aereo makes it a performance?

Are either one of those you paying a recurring fee to a company for a service that streams TV to you? No? Then you're fine.

by harryh 12y ago

Are either one of those you paying a recurring fee to a company for a service that streams TV to you? No? Then you're fine.

baddox 12y ago

The mechanism is exactly the same.

harryh 12y ago
Doesn't matter. I know you don't like that but that's the way it is. Common law isn't source code running on a machine with perfectly defined rules, it's a set of values adjudicated by judges. They looked at Aereo and said: It looks like a cable company and quacks like a cable company so it's gotta act like a cable company. The precise configuration of equipment they have in their datacenter doesn't matter.
- baddox 12y ago
  I'm not arguing that the law is the way I think it should be. I'm just arguing that the law is really dumb, and that it's pretty clear the legal system just makes decisions that serve the interests of powerful lobbies, rather than some intelligent or even discernible set of rules or principles.
  - harryh 12y ago
    I understand that you think it's really dumb but I think most people would disagree with you. When you get bogged down in the technical details of Aereo's datacenter configuration you miss the forrest for the trees. They're a company that streams TV into people's homes. Other companies (the cable companies) have to pay a fee to the content creators to do that. Why should it be different for Aereo? It costs a lot of money to make American Idol and CSI and to license the rights to the Super Bowl. The people that own that content should have a right to license it out in whatever manner they choose.
    - shmerl 12y ago
      Why is such streaming a "public performance" really? Aereo rents one antenna per user. Or public is now redefined?
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        > Or public is now redefined? Providing a service to the public vs. doing something privately, in law, is generally about doing the service commercially via an arms-length transaction in the general marketplace, not about the ratio of inputs to outputs. So, its not "redefinition" at all.
        shmerl 12y ago
        So, as others pointed out, renting an antenna should be violating the public performance restriction. Or renting a house with antenna for example, since it's commercial activity. It doesn't make sense though.
        dragonwriter 12y ago
        > So, as others pointed out, renting an antenna should be violating the public performance restriction. Or renting a house with antenna for example, since it's commercial activity. Offering antennas or houses for rent may be a service to the public, but if you the service doesn't involve any of the things that count as performance under the relevant provisions of the copyright act but only the tools to do it, its not a public performance. If Aereo was literally only renting physical attennas, the situation would be rather different than the actual service they were offering.
        shmerl 12y ago
        So what constitutes a mere tool, and what constitutes a performance then? > If Aereo was literally only renting physical attennas, the situation would be rather different than the actual service they were offering. Then there is an easy workaround. Let them rent out hardware explicitly. And users can control that hardware anyway they want (for example install some video streaming tools there, may be made by the same Aereo, and stream to themselves). What level of involvement from Aereo makes it a performance?