Court: Aereo TV Rebroadcast Is Still Legal

Maximum Prophet writes "While Redigi is illegal, Aereo, the service that allows users to time-shift over-the-air TV programming, isn't. 'We conclude that Aereo's transmissions of unique copies of broadcast television programs created at its users' requests and transmitted while the programs are still airing on broadcast television are not 'public performances' of the plaintiffs' copyrighted works,' said the ruling (PDF). Of course, both decisions are going to be appealed. 'The outcome also answers the question, at least momentarily, of whether online television would be controlled by a stodgy industry that once shunned the VCR, or whether third-party innovators embracing technological advances have a chance to build on the openness of public airwaves. ... Aereo’s technological setup, the court found, basically allows it to do what cable companies could not: retransmit broadcast airwaves without paying licensing fees. In short, the Aereo service is as legal as somebody putting an antenna on top of their house to capture broadcast signals. The court said Aereo “provides the functionality of three devices: a standard TV antenna, a DVR, and a Slingbox” device. “Each of these devices is legal, so it stands to reason that a service that combines them is also legal. Only in the world of copyright maximalists do people need to get special permission to watch over-the-air television with an antenna,” said John Bergmayer, an attorney with the digital-rights group Public Knowledge. “Just because ‘the internet’ is involved doesn’t change this."'"

Comments

Hang on.

[boarder8925]

This isn't a late April Fool's Day joke, is it?

What a hack

[Animats]

Aereo is a legal hack. Each user has their very own UHF antenna. The receiving center has thousands of tiny UHF antennas, one per user, each driving their own private file store. It's a remote DVR.

Re:What a hack

[Kell Bengal]

Each user has their very own UHF antenna. The receiving center has thousands of tiny UHF antennas, one per user

This really does highlight the absurdity of the current legal framework.

Re:What a hack

[sjames]

The absurdity is that the hack is at all necessary. Technically it is 100% equivalent of one good antenna and one encoder multicasting to each subscriber but due to the absurdities of copyright, the separate setup for each subscriber is necessary.

In a sane legal climate, the TV station would be thrilled that Aero wants to help them reach the dead pockets in their area at no cost to them and any suggestion that such helpful people (including the incumbent cable operators) might owe them a fee would be laughed out of court.

A bit of helpful theater

[srussia]

Having all those individual UHF antennas. Lots of apartment buildings have a shared antenna--nothing illegal there.

Re:A bit of helpful theater

[only_human]

I think there is a subtle difference. If you live in an apartment building sharing a common antenna, in some sense, that antenna is a property use paid for by all tenants, similar to a swimming pool.

In the past, putting over-the-air shows on the internet has been stopped. In those cases there was no established obvious user access to the antenna that was used to put the programming on the web. Aereo is trying to merely meet a simpler case of enabling use of equipment to which the user has legal access. It may be that in the future a common use of a single antenna for multiple users may be allowable by extension of the common antenna example that you mentioned. But by breaking out individual antennas for now, it removed the need to establishment of the legality of that at this time.

PBS...

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Undeterred, a group of the plaintiffs, including Fox and PBS, said they intended to move to trial. “Today’s decision is a loss for the entire creative community,” they said in a statement. “The court has ruled that it is O.K. to steal copyrighted material and retransmit it without compensation. While we are disappointed with this decision, we have and are considering our options to protect our programming.”

I recall something in the last election about how PBS should be entitled to government funding for "the greater good", meanwhile their sales of DVDs and other whatnot's (which apparently they are now trying to protect) go directly into the pockets of the executives instead of repaying what the government gave them. Never mind that big bird makes hundreds of millions per year in addition to paying nothing for its main source of distribution.

Why is government subsidized work supposed to be the property of this so called benevolent broadcaster?

And no, I'm neither a Romney supporter nor a Republican. I'm just one of those libertarians who is a nut for thinking that the government handing money to private entities who otherwise have a perfectly sustainable business model (and are in fact very profitable) is ripping off the taxpayers, and I'm annoyed as hell that somebody would be painted as being the bad guy who "hates free education for children" because he wants to take away said funding.

The Aereo Decision is Probably Final

[pdabbadabba]

A small point: TFS says that both rulings are likely to be appealed, but the Aereo decision was actually from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. So, unless the Supreme Court takes the case next term (extremely unlikely) that decision is final.