Aereo Wins Preliminary Injunction Hearing

bs0d3 writes "Aereo, a company that offers live broadcast TV via the internet to New York City residents, has won a preliminary injunction hearing. A federal judge has rejected a bid by major U.S. broadcasters to stop Aereo from rebroadcasting some of their programming over the Internet. District Judge Alison Nathan said that while the broadcasters have shown that they faced irreparable financial damage if the venture were allowed to continue, Aereo also showed it would face severe harm if the requested preliminary injunction were granted. The full injunction denial ruling can be found here."

Comments

Overcoming stupidity via technicality

[killfixx]

Why is it that the only way common sense can win, in court, is through some obscure technicality?

Company X provides Service Y for free (with ads), but through an outdated or inconvenient method/medium. Company Z provides convenient access to Service Y, without changing the product, and Company X sues Company Z into oblivion.

How was Company Z's product or service hurting Company X?

Balderdash!

Other than that, good luck to Aereo.

As a side note, why don't more gadget manufacturers include tiny antennae in their products specifically for tuning in OTA TV?

Is there some massive challenge that restricts this?

Re:Overcoming stupidity via technicality

[SuricouRaven]

While the ads still get viewed, X no longer has the data to prove it. No marketing data means their ad-time is worth a lot less. It's also likely to cause legal complications for content (espicially sport) which X has licensed to broadcast only in a specific geographic area. In that case, the actions of Z could cause X to be unwittingly violating their contract with the producer of that content and so exposing X to liability.

If you're looking for sillyness, ask why there are so many region-specific licences still in use not only in an increasingly globalised world, but even limiting some things to specific states or local areas. Sports are the biggest culprit here by far.

Re:Overcoming stupidity via technicality

[Joce640k]

They can prove people are watching ads on broadcast TV? How does that work...?

Re:Overcoming stupidity via technicality

[FullCircle]

The broadcasters are probably terrified because their marketing data is mostly speculation. They also have to attempt to control the end location of content they have licensed or else other broadcasters will sue them for stepping on their market area.

Aereo can tell what channels are being streamed at what times and could easily ask for demographics for targeted marketing. They can also send to mobile devices and offices where broadcast TV has very little uptake. Who carries a mobile receiver?

Streaming is potentially a huge improvement for the television market but rather than change or add to their current business model, broadcasters as a group attempt to litigate themselves into relevance.

Re:Overcoming stupidity via technicality

[lkcl]

As a side note, why don't more gadget manufacturers include tiny antennae in their products specifically for tuning in OTA TV?

in china, the broadcast transmission signal strengths are so high that you can pick up a good signal with a bit of wet string (literally, not figuratively).

however in the west the signal strengths are much much lower, and whilst attempts have been made to create digital receivers that are sensitive enough, they are either far too power-hungry or far too expensive. each of these things is incompatible with portable hand-held mass-volume devices.

so this is why internet-based video transmission is so important. the signal can be sent across pre-established [semi-reliable] connections where the data rate can be tailored to the conditions. what i'm hoping is that this company will actually develop multi-level video CODECs and publish them as free software algorithms. it could happen.