Broadcasters Petition US Supreme Court In Fight Against Aereo

First time accepted submitter wasteoid writes "Aereo provides live-streaming and cloud-based DVR capability for Over-The-Air (OTA) broadcasts to their paying customers. Broadcasters object to this functionality, with Fox claiming about Aereo, 'Make no mistake, Aereo is stealing our broadcast signal.' The focus appears to be the ability of Aereo to provide streaming and DVR capabilities that traditional broadcasters have not delivered. The litigious broadcasters are fighting against "Aereo's illegal disruption of their business model.""

Comments

Rights?

[AK Marc]

So we have no rights to the content beamed into our homes, but they have the Right to Profit, even with a bad business model.

Re:Rights?

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

That argument would apply to television sets themselves. Doesn't hold water.

Re:Rights?

[AK Marc]

The broadcaster is in the very least entitled to share in this profit.

So why haven't they sued LG? I'm watching TV on an LG right now, and there isn't a profit-sharing model between LG and NBC, is there? LG profited off the broadcast signal, with no compensation to the broadcasters.

I understand what you are saying, but I I don't think it applies. They aren't making money off the broadcasters any differently than TV makers are, and TV makers don't share profits.

You can argue all you like that the business model established by the broadcast industry is antiquated and that they should just go away.

I can't tell if you are being deliberately obtuse, or if you just don't get it. Nobody is saying that the industry should go away because they are antiquated. We are saying that their lawsuits should go away because their understanding of tech is antiquated. The law has well established that people can profit from storing and re-broadcasting TV (various lawsuits around VHS and TiVO have come out with the tech and devices being legal). If I were to hire someone to come to my house and program my VCR/PVR for me, that service is legal, despite the fact it is technically no longer "me" that's recording and playing back the signal. So, why is it suddenly illegal if I hire someone to hold all that VCR/PVR at their site?

By your logic, if I were to rent a storage shed and put my recorder there, and swap tapes/discs/media once a month and watch last month's back in my house, I'm breaking the law.

The way I see it, every single "step" of the process is explicitly legal, but the broadcasters are claiming that the sum of the parts are illegal. What's the point of even writing and voting laws if people sue because they don't "feel" it's right, though it complies with all laws and previous court decisions?

'Business Model' is not a protected class

[RandomFactor]

What the station owners fear more than Aereo is the possibility that cable and satellite providers, emboldened by Aereo, will set up their own antenna arrays to avoid paying retransmission fees.

This is exactly WHY this should be allowed. If it is cheaper to setup your own antennas than pay someone else to do it then consumers are being overcharged for the service. Competition should be protected, not the opposite of it.

If Aereo is so horrible (Napster, Bittorrent)...

[dryriver]

... then why don't the big broadcaster get together and buy Aereo before it can - supposedly! - "do more damage". --- This whole thing reeks of the stink TPTB raised each time an Internet file-sharing tech came along. Instead of investing/going along with the "new wave in media consumption", TPTB always demonize whatever the latest content-delivery mechanism does. ---- So My Dear Big-Broadcasters: Put your money where your mouth is, and buy Aereo "for the good of the industry". --- I sometimes wish that the Big Media PTB would hire a CEO/CTO who is in his 20s - 30s only. I bet that CEO/CTO would go along with new trends in media distribution and consumption, instead of trying to shut them/shoot them down before they even get a chance to mature. My 2 Cents... As always, feel free to disagree. =)

This is nothing more...

[unitron]

...than a case of how far away from your TV your DVR is allowed to be located.

Which is to say the broadcasters are trying to use smoke and mirrors to cover up rent seeking.

Re:This is nothing more...

[Anonymous Coward]

So people living in rented accomodation (where they don't own the antenna) or who pay a monthly fee to rent their TV and set-top-box combo aren't allowed to legally watch TV either? Good to know.

So thats how long it takes...

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember before there was FOX network.

When they came along the big 3 had such a hissyfit at them for daring to do something different.

And now here we are.. Fox is having the fit for someone else daring to do something different.

Didn't take very long at all. 27 years to turn you into a stick up the ass 'we demand profits forever for doing the same thing' greedmonster.

Re:NIH?

[gl4ss]

no, not a NIH.

they already invented getting paid for retransmitting the signal they broadcast.

it's not the pvr. it's the retransmit of something they're sending out. aereo is cutting into their fat, fat margin on that service(you'd think that a ota free channel would only be aiming for highest possible viewers?? HAHAHAHA NOT SO! because this is bizarro world. they're shooting for the highest possible money extraction from cable companies and the cable companies customers.).

Re:Why isn't this libel?

[shentino]

Because Fox is a corporation and not an individual.

Re:If Aereo is so horrible (Napster, Bittorrent)..

[ColdWetDog]

.. then why don't the big broadcaster get together and buy Aereo before it can - supposedly! - "do more damage"

Three reasons:

1) If you win in court, it prevents other people from trying to pull the same stunt
2) It may well be cheaper to pay lawyers to litigate against Aereo instead of attempting to buy it.
3) It just might not be for sale.

Re:Hmmm I wonder...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I wonder if this isn't a big deal because Aereo isn't rebroadcasting. Broadcasting is transmitting to a wider audience. Aereo has a single antenna distributing to a single person. Obviously this is what Aereo thinks is the case, the stream from my DVR to my TV is not a "rebroadcast." Contrast this with the cable TV operators, who receive the signal once, often through specialized equipment, and send it to all of their local subscribers.

That's the essence of Aereo's legal position(founded on the 'Cablevision Case', where CableVision's 'cloud DVR product, with a similar 'one tuner and storage allocation per user, controlled by the user' was upheld as licit).

Team Broadcast is apparently shitting themselves for some combination of (A) reactionary stupidity and (B) fear that cable companies that currently pay absurd fees to retransmit OTA programming will find it cheaper to set up these goofy antenna-array things than to pay off the broadcasters(which is a pretty good sign that the broadcasters are currently overpaid, if such a silly mechanism actually saves money; but they obviously like being overpaid...)

Re:Why isn't this libel?

[Gryle]

I'll believe that when I can have a corporation executed.

Re:Why isn't this libel?

[drinkypoo]

Why is it not illegal for Fox to make this fraudulent claim in a public forum?

Because some of us believe in free speech rights.

It is already illegal to knowingly make false claims, especially of a legal nature, in the public eye — specifically, with the intent to cause harm, which this clearly represents. It is a deliberate attempt to mislead for financial gain and other purposes.