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Aereo employee here. Just wanted to say "thank you" to the HN community for all the support over the past few years. Some of the most interesting and thoughtfu

Aereo employee here. Just wanted to say "thank you" to the HN community for all the support over the past few years. Some of the most interesting and thoughtful analysis I've seen on Aereo has been in the comments here. Of course, some of the worst, too. But that's what makes it Hacker News. This has obviously been a pretty difficult week for Aereo, and lots of people are speculating about what will happen to the company – but I don't think we're done just yet.

leorocky 12y ago
I'm sorry for your tough week. Not to pile on the negativity, it was an innovative product, and none of this is your fault, but it probably doesn't make sense to resell copyrighted content. As for not being done, your CEO, Kanojia, said: "If it’s a total straight-up loss, then it’s dead. We’re done," Was that a bluff?
- acjohnson55 12y ago
  IMO, they're selling an alternative method of accessing the copyrighted content that's already freely available to you, if you bought your own equipment.
vonklaus 12y ago
Please keep fighting, pivot into hardware and resell the antenna. If you did some software as well people would be able to make a distributed network similar to your centralized one. Revenue streams from the hardware and software could keep you viable.
- byuu 12y ago
  Absolutely. There are lots of us that live in areas with little if no content easily obtainable over-the-air, and our HOAs forbid larger antennas. I am sure NYC and SF get a much better selection of OTA channels. I would love the opportunity to lease an antenna off-site. And not just from the US, but antennas around the world. I can do my own DVR recording and storage locally. Break it up to where individuals can install your antenna and DVR software for it. And let them lease it to another individual. Imagine me in the US and a friend in Japan want to share. I put up an antenna for him, he puts one up for me. I get to watch Japanese TV, he gets to watch US TV. We now both have a great resource for language study. And it's 100% decentralized.
  - tzs 12y ago
    > There are lots of us that live in areas with little if no content easily obtainable over-the-air, and our HOAs forbid larger antennas. Your HOA cannot forbid a larger antenna for OTA broadcast reception. They can put some restrictions on where you place the antenna, such as requiring that it be in your back yard and not visible from the front, to the extent that those restrictions do not preclude reception or unreasonably raise the cost. (For satellite dishes, they can limit them to under 1 meter). Here is a guide from the FCC explaining your antenna rights: http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-rule http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-rule
    - byuu 12y ago
      Very nice! Thank you very much for that info! I know I had to go through my HOA to determine where I could place my Dish TV receiver and that it had requirements that it be under a certain size. Good to know it doesn't extend to OTA sizes, as I've been wanting to ditch the cable bill for a while now.
ehPReth 12y ago
Hey, just a quick note that the images on https://aereo.com/ https://aereo.com/ are incorrectly sourced (e.g. the source where the logo should go is "https://aereo-logo.png" https://aereo-logo.png")
- kevincennis 12y ago
  So - you're seeing broken images on the page? Any chance I could trouble you to post a screenshot?
  - ehPReth 12y ago
    It seems to be fixed now
jcastro 12y ago
Just wanted to say that I love Aereo, it's (was) nice to have my local content integrated right into my Roku; made things so much easier to use.
burnte 12y ago
One would think, since SCOTUS said since Aereo walks, talks, and acts like a cableco, then Aereo is also available to license rebroadcast rights under the compulsory license clause, as cablecos are. That said, I think Aereo is wonderful, but blew it in oral arguments before SCOTUS. I've never heard such a pathetic display as in this case. Example: Chief Justice Roberts served up Aereo a softball with this statement, "I mean, there's no technological reason for you to have 10,000 dimesized antenna, other than to get around the copyright laws." To which the lawyer's reply started with "Well." Right there the case was lost. Rather than answer this way, "Well, the point of the copyright laws, though, Your Honor, shouldn't turn on the number of antennas..." He should have replied: "On the contrary your honor, we do it this way to _adhere_ to copyright law. The entire point of our service is a remote antenna and DVR service, and in order to do that and comply with copyright law, we have to have thousands of individual antennas. To do otherwise would violate the letter and the spirit of the law, and we have chosen instead to abide by it and provide a very specific service, we provide a rented, individual conduit. We are not duplicating cable systems, we are simply lengthening the wire between the consumer and their individual antenna." But no. He started with a weasley sounding answer and blew the case. Aereo deserved to win, and could have. I hope Aereo goes the compulsory license route. Broadcasters can't both claim Aereo is a cable company and thus must buy licenses, and that Aereo isn't a cableco and isn't eligible for a compulsory license.
- bmr 12y ago
  I don't think the holding turned on the number of antennae at all. Nor is oral argument very important in appellate practice.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    I disagree. The lower federal appellate courts, which hear appeals as of right, don't even hear oral arguments on cases that can be easily decided on the briefs. The Supreme Court rarely hears such cases: if a case was easy to decide on the briefs, the Circuit Court below would have clearly resolved it. Oral arguments are particularly valuable in cases like this one: where the law is clear, but the facts are ambiguous. Should Aereo be viewed like essentially a long antenna, or like essentially a cable service?

leorocky 12y ago

I'm sorry for your tough week. Not to pile on the negativity, it was an innovative product, and none of this is your fault, but it probably doesn't make sense to resell copyrighted content. As for not being done, your CEO, Kanojia, said: "If it’s a total straight-up loss, then it’s dead. We’re done," Was that a bluff?

acjohnson55 12y ago
IMO, they're selling an alternative method of accessing the copyrighted content that's already freely available to you, if you bought your own equipment.

vonklaus 12y ago

Please keep fighting, pivot into hardware and resell the antenna. If you did some software as well people would be able to make a distributed network similar to your centralized one. Revenue streams from the hardware and software could keep you viable.

byuu 12y ago
Absolutely. There are lots of us that live in areas with little if no content easily obtainable over-the-air, and our HOAs forbid larger antennas. I am sure NYC and SF get a much better selection of OTA channels. I would love the opportunity to lease an antenna off-site. And not just from the US, but antennas around the world. I can do my own DVR recording and storage locally. Break it up to where individuals can install your antenna and DVR software for it. And let them lease it to another individual. Imagine me in the US and a friend in Japan want to share. I put up an antenna for him, he puts one up for me. I get to watch Japanese TV, he gets to watch US TV. We now both have a great resource for language study. And it's 100% decentralized.
- tzs 12y ago
  > There are lots of us that live in areas with little if no content easily obtainable over-the-air, and our HOAs forbid larger antennas. Your HOA cannot forbid a larger antenna for OTA broadcast reception. They can put some restrictions on where you place the antenna, such as requiring that it be in your back yard and not visible from the front, to the extent that those restrictions do not preclude reception or unreasonably raise the cost. (For satellite dishes, they can limit them to under 1 meter). Here is a guide from the FCC explaining your antenna rights: http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-rule http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-rule
  - byuu 12y ago
    Very nice! Thank you very much for that info! I know I had to go through my HOA to determine where I could place my Dish TV receiver and that it had requirements that it be under a certain size. Good to know it doesn't extend to OTA sizes, as I've been wanting to ditch the cable bill for a while now.

ehPReth 12y ago

Hey, just a quick note that the images on https://aereo.com/ https://aereo.com/ are incorrectly sourced (e.g. the source where the logo should go is "https://aereo-logo.png" https://aereo-logo.png")

kevincennis 12y ago
So - you're seeing broken images on the page? Any chance I could trouble you to post a screenshot?
- ehPReth 12y ago
  It seems to be fixed now

jcastro 12y ago

Just wanted to say that I love Aereo, it's (was) nice to have my local content integrated right into my Roku; made things so much easier to use.

burnte 12y ago

One would think, since SCOTUS said since Aereo walks, talks, and acts like a cableco, then Aereo is also available to license rebroadcast rights under the compulsory license clause, as cablecos are. That said, I think Aereo is wonderful, but blew it in oral arguments before SCOTUS. I've never heard such a pathetic display as in this case. Example: Chief Justice Roberts served up Aereo a softball with this statement, "I mean, there's no technological reason for you to have 10,000 dimesized antenna, other than to get around the copyright laws." To which the lawyer's reply started with "Well." Right there the case was lost. Rather than answer this way, "Well, the point of the copyright laws, though, Your Honor, shouldn't turn on the number of antennas..." He should have replied: "On the contrary your honor, we do it this way to _adhere_ to copyright law. The entire point of our service is a remote antenna and DVR service, and in order to do that and comply with copyright law, we have to have thousands of individual antennas. To do otherwise would violate the letter and the spirit of the law, and we have chosen instead to abide by it and provide a very specific service, we provide a rented, individual conduit. We are not duplicating cable systems, we are simply lengthening the wire between the consumer and their individual antenna." But no. He started with a weasley sounding answer and blew the case. Aereo deserved to win, and could have. I hope Aereo goes the compulsory license route. Broadcasters can't both claim Aereo is a cable company and thus must buy licenses, and that Aereo isn't a cableco and isn't eligible for a compulsory license.

bmr 12y ago
I don't think the holding turned on the number of antennae at all. Nor is oral argument very important in appellate practice.
- rayiner 12y ago
  I disagree. The lower federal appellate courts, which hear appeals as of right, don't even hear oral arguments on cases that can be easily decided on the briefs. The Supreme Court rarely hears such cases: if a case was easy to decide on the briefs, the Circuit Court below would have clearly resolved it. Oral arguments are particularly valuable in cases like this one: where the law is clear, but the facts are ambiguous. Should Aereo be viewed like essentially a long antenna, or like essentially a cable service?