

Aereo Wins Appeal - Trial Likely for Streaming TV - paul9290
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/business/media/aereo-wins-in-appeals-court-setting-stage-for-trial-on-streaming-broadcast-tv.html?_r=0

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chime
I've signed up for Aereo when it comes to Tampa. We currently have Netflix,
HuluPlus, and often buy movies on Amazon Instant. $8 Aereo + $8 Netflix + $8
Hulu = $24. Add in $4/movie on Amazon for one/two movies a weekend and you can
spend less than $50/mo and have access to near infinite amount of good content
and live content when you want.

Cable companies didn't have to offer à la carte packages because the market,
despite tremendous barriers, made that possible. Instead of picking channels,
we pick the medium - Aereo (live local), Netflix (vast archived library and
hopefully premium new content like House of Cards), Hulu (latest TV shows),
and Amazon Instant (relatively new movies). This is very different from
deciding if you want Discovery, HGTV, or HBO. Instead of picking genres, we're
joining libraries. And I'm perfectly happy with that. In fact, I think this is
a much better outcome than relying on cable companies to provide a good
selection of TV channels.

My Roku and AppleTV can stream from many different libraries and I can turn
the subscriptions on and off easily.

~~~
joonix
Why not just use an antenna? I'm missing something here. Aereo sounds nice for
people who want to stay connected to their hometowns when living away, but if
you're in Tampa why stream Tampa OTA TV when it's free over the air?

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chime
I tried. I spent $100+ dollars on various digital antennas but because of my
location/trees/neighborhood, I barely get one or two channels, none of them
clearly.

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nobleach
This is the first I've heard of what sounds like brilliant technology. It'll
take the power away from the networks... so of COURSE it'll get shot down. The
only reason I can see them hating this, is that a user seeing broadcast TV
from NYC yet living in Salt Lake City is not likely to be spending any money
at White Castle Hamburgers...so advertising dollars spent have the perceived
effect of deflation. I don't think it's right at all. Would it be illegal if I
bought the land, put up an antenna and ran a cable across the country?

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fnordfnordfnord
I'd really like to see them challenge the FCC's silly geographical restriction
too. There is no good reason not to let us watch NYC broadcast television from
anywhere.

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rayiner
The geographical limitation is inextricable from the copyright limitation.
Just because I intended to let you watch my TV show for free in NYC (by
broadcasting it over the air) doesn't mean I wanted to let you watch it
anywhere in the country.

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betterunix
Copyright holders are going to have to learn that the Internet is here to
stay, that it is free from geographical restrictions, and that we are not
going to halt the progress of technology for the sake of their antiquated
business models. It takes less time to send a HD feature-length movie from
Japan to New York than it takes to go to a video rental store. Times have
changed, technology has improved, and we are not stuck with the same
restrictions we had in the 1960s.

Red flag laws did not stop the automobile; why should copyright stop
innovative uses of the Internet?

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rayiner
The fact that the internet is free from geographical restrictions doesn't mean
that copyright holders don't get to impose whatever terms they want on your
right to view the content they create.

> Red flag laws did not stop the automobile; why should copyright stop
> innovative uses of the Internet?

Terrible analogy. With red flag laws, the obsolete industry was just getting
between the transactional relationship between car manufacturers and drivers.
In this case, the "obsolete" industry is creating the thing that's of real
value, the thing that people want: content.[1] There is nothing stopping
internet-savvy content creators from allowing their content to be distributed
over the internet under liberal terms, other than the fact that people don't
want that content, they want the big name content from the big name content
producers. And internet companies, like Youtube, etc, who make money off other
peoples' content have tremendous incentive to make it seem like a battle of
"progress versus outdated industries" when what they want is to be able to
make a profit by inserting themselves in the middle of these transactions.

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betterunix
"The fact that the internet is free from geographical restrictions doesn't
mean that copyright holders don't get to impose whatever terms they want on
your right to view the content they create."

In fact, copyright holders cannot impose restrictions on my right to view
their work. The only difference here is that the viewing involves the Internet
and the outdated assumptions about copying and media distribution upon which
copyright is based. A very long time ago, geographic restrictions made sense,
but those days are decades past.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that the law is handed down from the
heavens. Laws can be out of date, and laws that were once good at promoting
progress can wind up impeding it.

"With red flag laws, the obsolete industry was just getting between the
transactional relationship between car manufacturers and drivers"

No, with red flag laws an obsolete industry was trying to impose restrictions
on the use of a new technology to the point of making it impractical. It had
nothing to do with car manufacturers, it was a law that targeted the users of
automobiles. That is exactly what is happening in this case: the broadcasters
and media conglomerates are trying to impose enough restrictions on Aereo's
technology that it becomes impractical.

The problem with your view of this is that you are connecting the production
of entertainment to a specific business model. Broadcast TV killed Vaudeville,
and the Internet is killing broadcast TV. We had entertainment before
copyright, we have had it with copyright, and we will continue to have it in
the hypothetical post-copyright world (if we are lucky enough to see such a
day).

"Indeed, it's internet companies like Youtube, etc, trying to profit by
getting in-between the content producers and the content consumers..."

You are ignoring the history of those companies. Youtube would never have
existed had the RIAA and MPAA not conspired, lobbied, and abused the justice
system for the purpose of killing peer to peer filesharing. A promising,
decentralized technology that allowed anyone to broadcast entertainment on a
global scale was destroyed and companies like Youtube took its place.

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rayiner
> That is exactly what is happening in this case: the broadcasters and media
> conglomerates are trying to impose enough restrictions on Aereo's technology
> that it becomes impractical.

What restrictions are they trying to impose exactly, other than "do whatever
the hell you want just with your own damn content?" You're completely ignoring
that crucial distinction between this situation and red flag laws. Cars were
not taking advantage of horse driven carriages in any way. Aero exists only to
distribute the content of the big media networks. Nobody would subscribe to
their service without that content. Nobody is suing to restrict the technology
--they're suing to force Aero to not free-ride on their content.

> A promising, decentralized technology that allowed anyone to broadcast
> entertainment on a global scale was destroyed and companies like Youtube
> took its place.

Nobody "killed" P2P. Last I checked, I could still torrent Ubuntu ISO's all
day long.

You keep bringing up stuff like "allowed anyone to broadcast entertainment on
a global scale" then ignore the fact that nobody has shut down the technology
that allows people to do this. You can put together your 18th century murder
mystery home movie and distribute it over Bittorrent and it's 100% legal. It's
just that nobody wants the random crap filmed by some guy in their basement.
They want $100 million Hollywood blockbusters.

What's happening is that content companies are fighting to protect companies
like Napster, Youtube, etc, from free-riding on content they didn't create.
And I don't think technology changes anything in this regard. Just because
technology makes it easier to profit from other peoples' creations doesn't
mean that it's "holding back innovation" to keep people from doing so.

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EwanG
"What's happening is that content companies are fighting to protect companies
like Napster, Youtube, etc, from free-riding on content they didn't create."

No one is stopping content companies from creating their own Napsters and
Youtubes and making the money that the "free riders" are now taking. They have
shown no willingness to do so even with so many profitable examples out there.
If the companies had come out with something like Spotify back when Napster
showed what the appetite for music was really like I suspect they'd be in a
much better place now in both a PR and Profit sense.

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paul9290
I'm very excited about this!

I feel it's the beginning of the slow demise to the cable TV business model.

Aereo could easily add third tier cable stations or up and coming stations
looking for an audience, i.e. Al Jazeera, Current TV and others. To fill in
the void of no CNN, Fox News and others. ESPN though is a different story.

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badgar
Why should they settle for third tier cable stations? I want HBO, Showtime,
ESPN. If you're in the clear rebroadcasting Fox News you're in the clear with
ESPN. How could -or would- you possibly see a difference? Copyrighted content
is copyrighted content.

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InnocentB
The issue is that they'd need an agreement with these stations. They don't
need one with, say, NBC, because NBC is broadcasting their content over the
air, and Aereo's arrays of tiny antennas are all receiving them. To do a
similar thing for a cable station you'd need one cable subscription per user,
which is pretty likely to wreck their business model. Third-tier stations
looking for more viewers are more likely to license their stuff cheaply.

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fnordfnordfnord
It is a Rube Goldberg scheme, to avoid even sillier copyright law(s). Good for
them, and us, I think.

~~~
rayiner
It's not really the copyright law that was silly, but the precedent case
Cablevision that created this silly loophole to something being considered a
"public performance."

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betterunix
No, it is copyright law that is "silly." When we need to build antenna arrays
just to get around ludicrously outdated restrictions, the problem is the
restrictions. What makes copyright worse is that the restrictions it imposes
on our use of modern technology have not remained in place because the wheels
of politics are slow, but because our politicians would rather protect
anachronistic business models than push society into a new age.

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rayiner
The restrictions in this context have nothing to do with politicians or the
statute. They come from a loophole in the case:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Network,_LP_v._CSC_Hold...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Network,_LP_v._CSC_Holdings,_Inc).

The case made a big deal about the fact that Cablevision was streaming
separate streams to each user, and therefore it wasn't a public performance.
The correct answer would've been: IP unicast is never a public performance.

~~~
betterunix
None of that would have been an issue if we simply did away with copyright and
created a new system that made more sense in this day and age. We do not need
a system that relies on huge, centralized monoliths to distribute our
entertainment anymore, we made something better and are desperately hoping the
law will catch up.

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rayiner
Last I checked, the law didn't do anything to keep consenting content creators
and content consumers from using P2P or Youtube or whatever "something better"
you're referring to. Absolutely nothing is stopping anyone from creating and
using this whole alternative, 21st century system, and leaving those big bad
media conglomerates in the dust. Other than the fact that people just want to
watch House, or SNL, or a Sony BMG produced music video.

It's not copyright law that gives NBC, Viacom, etc, their power. It's the fact
that people really want their products and aren't willing to settle for
alternatives. All copyright does is keep the Youtubes of the world from
cashing in on that demand by inserting themselves in the middle and trying to
profit from the popularity of the big media products.

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themckman
I could see something like this being very useful for watching out of town
sports teams. For the NFL, I might want to tune to the local Fox/CBS station
to watch some game that I wouldn't normally get in my market. That is,
assuming it's legal...

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parfe
You need a credit card with a billing address in the market area:
<https://aereo.com/zips>

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fotbr
Fortunately, there are companies offering private mail boxes and forwarding
services in most medium-to-large cities, so obtaining a billing address in the
market of your choice isn't particularly difficult.

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205guy
Right, but you'd also need a CC tied to that billing address, one that will
presumably be billed monthly, so not a one-time throw-away. So you need a CC
and a private mailbox service in every city you want to see TV. But that is
really just circumventing the must-live-in-service-area rule, so subject to
being found out and cut off.

The limitation on transmitting copyrighted works essentially creates a
geographical monopoly with respect to television. Even if you could fly to
another city and watch TV for free there, it is a copyright violation for a
company to send you the signal from an antenna there. That's also why the
Zediva rent-a-DVD-remotely was struck down: even if you own or rent the
equipment, it seems illegal for the company to transmit the copyrighted work
to you.

The ruling in the Aereo case gets around this because they limit their
transmission to people who get the exact same free-to-air signal. There is
still a transmission (which is what the dissenting judge based his argument
upon), but the practical effect of getting the same content you would get
otherwise seems to have prevailed, fortunately.

IANAL so I don't know how accurate that all is, but it's the understanding
I've gotten from reading around.

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savrajsingh
IIRC, Aereo only lets you watch channels you could pick up with an antenna in
your current location. So it's a DVR for the free channels you're already
getting OTA, but with a much more convenient delivery mechanism (straight to
your phone). And no need to set up an antenna, as they take care of that.

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nebula
For that matter the 'private one copy per user', is even simpler to maintain
without actually requiring to store multiple copies. All they need is a
deduplication mechanism at the storage layer, and store the files block wise.
Legally they could prove that they are recording a copy per user, while they
would be paying close to a single copy cost in terms of storage.

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signed0
I'm surprised that PBS was one of the plaintifs. I can't fathom how Aereo's
service harms them, given that they do not show commercials. Do they believe
that this is going to reduce the amount of people that watch telethons or buy
their show on DVD?

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dublinben
PBS relies on syndication fees to fund their programming. If viewers were able
to circumvent geographic broadcasts, it would undermine their national network
system. Soon, only a handful of broadcasters or producers would be left, and
anyone outside their area wouldn't have broadcasts any more.

