3 ms·

SCOTUS never really addressed this. The majority opinion was basically just a bunch of vague hand-waving that amounted to "if it looks like a duck...". That wa

SCOTUS never really addressed this. The majority opinion was basically just a bunch of vague hand-waving that amounted to "if it looks like a duck...". That was one of the most frustrating things for me when the decision came out. Obviously we all understood that we might lose, but to have a decision handed down that was so completely devoid of any sort of definitive logic or reasoning was really, really demoralizing. They effectively just said "You look like a cable company, and even though we accept that legally you are most certainly not a cable company, we still find that you publicly perform... because cable companies publicly perform".

harryh 12y ago
Aereo argued that what they were actually doing in their datacenter mattered. American Broadcasting Companies argued that the equipment you were running was irrelevant and what mattered was the service you were selling (streaming unlicensed TV over the internet). I don't think the latter point is unreasonable. And I don't think your company thought it was unreasonable either (except when trying to win court cases). When trying to market your product to customers this is what your website said(1): "Watch Real, Live TV on the Internet. Finally. With Aereo you can now watch live broadcast television online. No cable required." The customer doesn't care about what's going on in your datacenter. Why should SCOTUS? 1. http://web.archive.org/web/20130302160437/https://aereo.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20130302160437/https://aereo.com/
- kevincennis 12y ago
  I think the latter point absolutely is unreasonable. That marketing tagline you pulled could just as easily have come from Sling (i.e. "Put an antenna in your house and hook it up to a Slingbox"). But nobody seems to think that would be a public performance. By your logic, Aereo should have been legal if the website said "User-controlled, individually assigned remote antennas and DVRs in the cloud". The way you market yourself has nothing to do with copyright law. You need to look at what's actually happening under the hood – not just base your decision on whatever the "user perception" is of the service.
  - harryh 12y ago
    You missed my point. I didn't say that Aereo was legal or not based on its marketing, I said that there was a common cause to both Aereo's lack of legality and the marketing the company chose to sell the product.
brianfitz 12y ago
All that effort to litigate Aereo out of existance, and technology marches on. https://www.tivo.com/discover/antenna https://www.tivo.com/discover/antenna

harryh 12y ago

Aereo argued that what they were actually doing in their datacenter mattered. American Broadcasting Companies argued that the equipment you were running was irrelevant and what mattered was the service you were selling (streaming unlicensed TV over the internet). I don't think the latter point is unreasonable. And I don't think your company thought it was unreasonable either (except when trying to win court cases). When trying to market your product to customers this is what your website said(1): "Watch Real, Live TV on the Internet. Finally. With Aereo you can now watch live broadcast television online. No cable required." The customer doesn't care about what's going on in your datacenter. Why should SCOTUS? 1. http://web.archive.org/web/20130302160437/https://aereo.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/20130302160437/https://aereo.com/

kevincennis 12y ago
I think the latter point absolutely is unreasonable. That marketing tagline you pulled could just as easily have come from Sling (i.e. "Put an antenna in your house and hook it up to a Slingbox"). But nobody seems to think that would be a public performance. By your logic, Aereo should have been legal if the website said "User-controlled, individually assigned remote antennas and DVRs in the cloud". The way you market yourself has nothing to do with copyright law. You need to look at what's actually happening under the hood – not just base your decision on whatever the "user perception" is of the service.
- harryh 12y ago
  You missed my point. I didn't say that Aereo was legal or not based on its marketing, I said that there was a common cause to both Aereo's lack of legality and the marketing the company chose to sell the product.

brianfitz 12y ago

All that effort to litigate Aereo out of existance, and technology marches on. https://www.tivo.com/discover/antenna https://www.tivo.com/discover/antenna