
Supreme Court to hear arguments on Aereo this week - xhrpost
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/aereo-case-goes-to-supreme-court/2014/04/21/50bbd1e8-c59d-11e3-9f37-7ce307c56815_story.html
======
yahelc
SCOTUSBlog has a great deepdive into the case:
[http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/04/argument-preview-free-
tv-a...](http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/04/argument-preview-free-tv-at-a-
bargain-price/)

~~~
dublinben
It's really surprising that nobody else has mentioned the Cablevision ruling.
That is the exact precedent that Aereo has designed their system to comply
with.

~~~
joezydeco
It gets mentioned, and then another HN story pops up on Aereo and we have to
review the facts and stances over again. And again.

------
brk
I've followed the Aereo stuff going on. Not heavily, but with more curiosity
than not.

One question I've never seen fully addressed about the technology: are they
literally claiming to capture a signal directly from the tiny antenna and
encode/route that specific signal to a specific user with no other
filtering/enhancement/etc. in between? Knowing how hard it is to get a _good_
DTV signal, it seems unlikely that a bunch of tiny antennas buried in a data
center are going to get reliably good signals. It would seem like what they
are doing is capturing the signal from a better source, and then maintaining a
batch of crappy antennas just to claim a 1:1 ratio of antennas to customers.

Does anyone know with reliable data how the technology really works?

~~~
kevincennis
The antennas aren't "buried in a data center", they're housed in RF-
transparent rooftop enclosures with line-of-sight (and reasonably close
proximity) to the broadcast source.

Full disclosure: I work there.

~~~
brk
Thanks for the clarification. Some other tech article I read last year didn't
really clarify it, and the pics made it look like the antennas were basically
on some form of a PCI card, installed in racked servers.

So then you're saying that two customers using Aereo watching the same
broadcast channel are getting uniquely encoded signals, and one could
theoretically be connected to an antenna that had poor reception/signal (for
whatever reason) and the other could be connected to an antenna with a better
signal, and they'd see visibly different image streams?

~~~
kevincennis
Yup. Our CEO gave a similar example (15:30) on C-SPAN a few days ago:

"If one individual consumer's antenna — let's say a mosquito sits on it or it
fails because the associated electronics failed — your screen goes dark and
your neighbor is fine".

"Neighbor" here meaning "the person using the antenna next to yours".

[http://www.c-span.org/video/?318908-1/communicators-chet-
kan...](http://www.c-span.org/video/?318908-1/communicators-chet-kanojia)

Side note: As a front-end engineer, I can tell you it's pretty cool to know
that on the other end of your app there's an individual piece of tangible
equipment interacting with the physical world. That's pretty unique.

~~~
avar
It's so frustrating to watch that interview. He gives an initial summary of
the situation and then the journalists ask him the same rephrased question
over and over again.

------
steven777400
This was tried before with the "rent a DVD and player" streaming service
(Zediva [1]). I would be shocked if Aereo won this case. The courts look
strongly at the intention of the law; it's not the same "literally as-written"
interpretation that technical folk tend to take of things.

From the Zediva case: "The courts ruled that it was irrelevant that the videos
were streamed to one customer at a time in his private hotel room; the service
still transmitted videos 'to the public,'"

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/08/judge-orders-
shut...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/08/judge-orders-shutdown-of-
dvd-streaming-service-zediva/)

~~~
xhrpost
I remember reading about this. Even from the "intention of the law"
perspective though, I still didn't get the argument of the MPAA. How is it
that a private individual choosing a title to watch for themselves constitute
as a "public" display of the work? They were renting their own DVD player and
legit movie disc, something anyone can do physically if they so choose by
going to a couple stores.

~~~
CamperBob2
Because the MPAA rents its own US Senators, that's why.

~~~
EGreg
Not supreme court justices though

------
akgerber
This is a confusing headline, to me— I'd phrase it 'Supreme Court to decide on
Aereo, a startup that could reshape the TV industry'

~~~
jisaacks
I thought the same thing, that they had decided. This is the title of the
original article though.

~~~
dang
HN's guidelines call for changing the original title when it's linkbait or
misleading. This one was misleading, so we changed it.

------
selmnoo
If Aereo loses, there's a nice little thing they can do.

They should stop offering the streaming service, and start selling this thing
(either recreate a similar competing device, or simply become a reseller!):
[http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_broadway.html](http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_broadway.html)
\- a TV-signal-receiver/streamer-in-one device -- which can stream either over
your local Wi-fi, or across the interwebs so you can watch remotely when
you're out of the house.

And then people can use this thing for themselves _and_ their friends and
families... at no cost! Aereo should ship the thing to all current consumers
immediately after losing, and lock everyone into a contract of 8$/month
payments for however long it takes to recoup the full $150 cost of the device.

I'll be happy if people get this device over a service because it goes a nice
distance to finally putting the power of cloud in the consumer's hand.

~~~
Splendor
Aereo is for people who can't put up an antenna (or don't want to). This
device requires an antenna.

~~~
selmnoo
You must have at least one friend or family member who can put up an antenna
though, right? Give it to them, and get a streamcast going!

Sure it's five minutes of hassle setting the thing up, but once it's setup
it's all free.

~~~
bri3d
My experience with doing this with friends is that most US ISPs have awful
upload jitter, plus (increasingly) data caps as well.

This might work for lucky fiber-to-home subscribers but every time I've tried
on Comcast, a giant buffer (10 seconds or more) is required to hide the
jitter, and sometimes the neighbors start seeding something on BitTorrent and
the stream will still cut out.

Plus there are a lot of contingencies that require an increasingly complex
technical solution. First you have to deal with whatever router configuration
/ NAT is present. And sometimes your friend's IP changes, and you're stuck
setting up dynamic DNS or a reverse proxy.

The Broadway box was generally panned in reviews for not including a
workaround for these networking issues, and I suspect the technical complexity
of friend-to-friend streaming is why TV broadcasters have never been worried
about it in the past. IPv6 will hopefully help solve the addressing and NAT
issues, but the generally awful quality of US home connections remains a big
problem.

------
Shivetya
One oddity here is that broadcast tv is treated differently than
cable/satellite only channels. the FCC enforces different rules regarding
advertising and programming restrictions than what can and does appear on
cable. Mostly this is restricted to political ads.

From that standpoint of broadcast being so highly regulated because the
airwaves are public property do the stations who use that medium retain any
rights to what they broadcast? If the FCC can claim jurisdiction and tell you
what you cannot broadcast over "public airwaves" because is public property
does the act of freely putting your shows on it mean you give up the right to
control unaltered reuse or differing uses?

~~~
jarrett
> does the act of freely putting your shows on it mean you give up the right
> to control unaltered reuse or differing uses?

No, by law it does not. The copyright remains in effect. As discussed in the
article, broadcasting grants certain rights to end users, but it certainly
doesn't wipe out all the copyright holder's rights.

~~~
davorak
Aereo's they are just a middle man for the end user. The end user is using
that antenna and for convince is sending it over the internet to wherever they
are.

It is perfectly legal for an end user in this case to make a video recording
and watch it later for personal use. Or even digitize it and watch it on their
computer. In Aereo case that digital copy is also sent over the internet to
another computer for personal viewing.

In this case no copyrights seem to be broken.

------
drawkbox
You'd think broadcast and cable companies would embrace doing their own
competitive product to extend their reach.

Instead they still to this day create a false demand by holding back American
innovation, that only works if their aren't other alternatives.

If broadcast/cable want to live on they need to get to innovating and
improving service, not fighting everything that challenges their kingdom.

I hope Aereo once again opens up competition on overpriced and monopolistic
practices. Cable and broadcast had an immense lead when broadband internet
innovated (with the help of taxpayer money and rights to provide the service
they agreed to), then they stopped, got fat and turned to hogs.

Monopolies can sometimes move everyone forward for a time (At&T/telcos leading
to software/C/C++, Microsoft spreading computing and internet, possibly Apple
and the smart phone initially) but eventually, if the leaders aren't
innovating and get too comfortable, they need to be jolted awake as they are
no longer the leading innovators nor the future.

~~~
rayiner
The broadcasters aren't monopolies, not in an age where the broadcast medium
itself (as distinct from the content) is increasingly irrelevant. Only 7% of
households rely on over-the-air TV: [https://www.ce.org/News/News-
Releases/Press-Releases/2013-Pr...](https://www.ce.org/News/News-
Releases/Press-Releases/2013-Press-Releases/Only-Seven-Percent-of-TV-
Households-Rely-on-Over-t.aspx).

The networks continue to matter because they offer products that people want
to buy (movies and TV shows). These products are so compelling, that very few
people have managed to offer compelling alternatives. E.g. people don't just
want a doctor show, they want "House." They don't just want a sitcom, they
want "How I Met Your Mother." It's not "innovation" to simply figure out new
ways to take popular products and distribute them to consumers without paying
the creators.

I applaud Netflix and Amazon for going down the path of real competition.
Shows like "House of Cards" and "Alpha House" are rare alternatives to the
media offered by established companies that actually receive good critical and
audience reception.

~~~
drawkbox
Yes broadcast channels are on the decline but they owned and ran off the
benefits of public airwaves which were/are very hard to get access to.

Before cable, Fox was successful in being the 4th big broadcast network but it
was a huge battle (although it did shake things up when successful shows like
the Simpsons were on).

Thankfully shortly after, we have cable and internet now, both further steps
in limiting top down broadcast control. But with the support of tax money,
broadcast space and lots of money the old broadcast stations were a combined
monopoly on the airwaves.

You could argue the network stations have had to innovate a bit with cable and
internet taking over and so they do have content that people love. The desire
to use the public airwaves has been impossible for so long nobody really wants
to take over the public airwaves much anymore so it is silly to fight against
Aereo.

~~~
rayiner
The broadcast channels never owned the public airwaves. At the time, broadcast
was the most practical way of delivering content, and they engaged in what was
a reasonable bargain for everyone: the public gets high-quality content for
free, and the broadcasters get to use the public spectrum.

Today, I don't think the arrangement makes sense for anyone. Broadcast TV
isn't the best use of all that spectrum, and the vast majority of people get
their television content through cable or the internet. The bulk of the value
of the networks today is in their content. They've always had the content
people love, because they do a really good job making such content. They have
expertise. It's very difficult to create content people want to watch, because
most people will quickly dismiss shows and movies that don't have high
production values. That's where the value of these companies lies in the
modern era. And going forward, they'll have to double-down on this core
function.

But Aereo isn't moving "innovation" forward in any way. They're just trying to
make a quick buck using other peoples' content. In contrast, Amazon and
Netflix (as well as HBO and some other companies) are moving the whole
situation forward by trying to compete with the networks in the area of
content production.

------
dalek2point3
Katie Couric did this great interview of Chet Kanojia on Yahoo that is
definitely worth checking out. [http://news.yahoo.com/video/aereo-broadcast-
tv-worst-nightma...](http://news.yahoo.com/video/aereo-broadcast-tv-worst-
nightmare-032204252.html)

In it, the Aereo CEO admits to being "anxious" because the $100 million on the
company is essentially down the drain depending on what the Supreme Court
decides. He says, this is mainly due to the 110-odd people who work at the
firm. Fair-nuff -- seems like a reasonable sort-a guy.

------
kodablah
"They cringe at the thought of paying $130 a month for cable so Boorstin won’t
miss Nationals baseball games. [...] With Aereo, baseball streaming site
MLB.com, and maybe another app, they would gladly use the Internet for all
their video news and entertainment."

Nope, if the Nationals aren't over the air in DC (likely not most of the
time), and you live in DC, it will be blacked out. Aereo does not affect this
in any way.

~~~
orky56
Of course it does. Someone can subscribe to an antenna in a different market
than DC, specifically to get a nationally televised game that is NOT blacked
out in the local market. This is would be my biggest draw to Aereo.

~~~
lanaius
Your credit card billing address has to match your service area.

~~~
x0054
Get a prepaid credit card and claim any address you want.

~~~
venomsnake
And commit 30-40 CFAA and wire fraud felonies according to an overzealous DA
in the process.

//just to show how absurd the situation with computer crime right now is.

------
filmgirlcw
Assuming the court doesn't punt the decision (the way it did with Bilsky),
this has the potential to be the most important broadcasting case since
Betamax.

I've been following and covering Aereo since its NYC launch in Feb 2012 and
regardless of who wins, the implications for the future of broadcast are huge.

------
sdegutis
Who needs TV for entertainment anyway? That old Maine saying comes to mind:
use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without.

------
higherpurpose
Why did the government have to intervene here? Just because the current
administration is a tight friend of the RIAA? It seems to be doing it quite a
lot lately. Imagine Monsanto suing some farmers, and then the government
intervening in the trial to _help_ Monsanto. There's just something wrong
about that. The government should stick to its own cases and lawsuits, not
intervene in 3rd party lawsuits.

~~~
DerpDerpDerp
I mean, they already induced a foreign state to violate that state's laws in
order to harass a resident of that state, seize assets and information which
they had no legal claim to, and then after a politically motivated prosecution
fell apart, presented all the illegally obtained evidence to their industry
friends so they could use it as the basis of a lawsuit against the same
person.

Why would we expect any better here?

~~~
DerpDerpDerp
I'm curious what specifically people think is inaccurate about my description
of the Kim Dotcom events.

------
joesb
> But Aereo argues that it is entitled to draw freely from programs
> transmitted on public airwaves.

Are they talking about the data being broadcasted in public spectrum? Or that
the wave travel through public air and atmosphere?

If it is the latter and that argument can be used, then would it be legal to
capture cellphone communication and any wireless data?

I just don't think one should blindly accept unsound argument even if it would
result in the change one wants.

~~~
rayiner
Their argument isn't that they should be able to use the data freely because
it's broadcast over the public airwaves. The relevance of the public airwaves
is that there is an existing compromise between broadcasters and the public
such that the public is entitled to watch certain content for free over the
air, in return for broadcasters being allowed to use the public airwaves. What
Aereo is arguing is that their service falls within this existing compromise,
because it's no different than attaching a rabbit-ear to your TV with a really
long cable.

In other words, it's okay not just because the data is on the public airwaves,
but because the data is on the public airwaves AND broadcasters have agreed to
let the public use that data under certain conditions. This isn't quite the
legal posture of the dispute, but it's the public policy essence of it.

