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Feds Now Oppose Aereo, Rejecting Cloud Apocalypse Argument
v3rgEz writes "TV streaming service Aereo expected broadcasters would put up a fight. The startup may not have seen the Justice Department as a threat, however. The Justice Department has now weighed in, saying in a filing that it's siding with major broadcasters who accuse Aereo of stealing TV content. In its filing, the Justice Department noted it doesn't believe a win for broadcasters would dismantle the precedent that created the cloud computing industry, as Aereo has previously claimed. The case is expected to go before the Supreme Court in late April."
[nt]
My 6 year old is sad we can't record broadcast TV through aereo anymore (living in the Utah/Denver area where it got shut down). When you're paying for aereo, you are mainly paying for a tv guide service, $8/month. In our case we had already been watching only broadcast TV for a year and wanted a nice DVR service without paying for TiVO antenna DVR which was overpriced... $15/month for tv guide service.
Anyone know how to build a small MythTV box? Main consideration is TV/Antenna card in a small form factor - set top box.
Get to make the rules. Yet another example.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The same Justice Department officials will soon leave to work for the various broadcast networks.
Thank goodness we've got the Obama administration to bring some common sense back to government and stand up for the little guy.
...seems destined to prevail on the merits (assuming the Justices *reach* the merits, which I hope they do).
I'm not quite sure what team of lawyers came up with the "we don't think it will destroy cloud computing" line of reasoning, but I dissent in the strongest terms from those who invented that line, because it will do PRECISELY that.
The idea isn't hard to follow, and I'm certain that one of my colleagues here will supply the relevant case cites. I've got rather a full civil rights plate at the moment. Let's start the ball game with, "cloud computing will be powerless to prevent having to carry advertising content," and go from there.
It's a CF -- and a big one at that.
.... many networks will stream a good portion of the shows that they air, usually only a day or so after initial broadcast... and typically leave them available for about a week. There's commercials, of course, but it's really not that bad a way to watch television. I'm not sure what need Aero was really trying to fill.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
its like saying my landlord is violating copyright if everyone in our apartment building hung out an antenna and saved a personal copy of the shows they wanted. the landlord owns the building they profit off of renting out space for us to watch TV in (isnt that what homes are for?) and they physically house copies of the data for their tenants to watch.
Is anyone doing anything about that?
Yeah.
Didn't think so.
Look, in First World countries, you get high bandwidth internet that is 10-20 times faster than the US for $20 a month or less and you get fewer commercials and lower cable bills.
We live in a Second World country.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
On one hand broadcast TV is provided to anyone with a antenna and TV to watch. But if someone uses that programming for profit its a violation?
I guess the real issue is that it is considered re broadcast. In other words Aereo believes they are simply passing along a broadcast and not doing anything
to alter it. But in fact they are changing its delivery device and that means they are changing the signal and broadcast to another medium. They do this for a service. I would be in the same violation if I put up a antenna and feed that to my neighbors and charged a fee for doing so. I am not altering the signal per say, but I am charging for a service which means I must obtain permission to do so. Aereo would have to get permission to re broadcast as a that kind of provider. Same as a cable company would, or satellite.
Cord cutters might have actually watched their advertisements on occasion. Now... not a chance.
They just marginalized themselves for nothing.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The Golden Rule. Those with the gold get to make the rules.
It would be the same if you offered to lease roof space to your neighbor to put an antenna on... something which is not unheard of.
It is, right up to the point where the cable from the antenna to the remote location is broken. At that point, it's not a direct lease - you are modifying the signal - combining, splitting, transcoding, retransmitting. 1:1 is the limit.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
In other news, gigantic steaming piles of lobbyist money has been found to affect the judicial branch of the US government as well as the legislative branch.
It means: "surprised and confused so much that they are unsure how to react"
It does NOT mean the opposite of that!
How is this different than leasing a very tiny apartment somewhere?
The reality is that cable would turn off all OTA if it could. It's not an issue of whether the content is public.
nope; the customer is doing that.
They are renting a DVR (device that consumes antenna signals) and renting a TV Aerial (device that harvests antenna signals).
They feed that antenna signal into a DVR which decodes it into video information and saves it.
Note: nothing special going on except the dvr is in a closet at Aereo.
Then I log into the DVR stored in the Aereo closet, I ask the DVR that I rent to send me the signal in a format I can consume. Normally, this is HDMI signals (very different from the signals broadcast over the air), but this time I ask it to send me them as an encoded video stream, which I then (through various potentially convoluted means) pipe to myself.
Note: I rent the PVR; I rent the antenna, I rent the cable between the PVR and the Antenna, and I command the PVR to transmit me the TV signals.
What part of that is Aereo doing wrong? Renting me a closet?
Since the Feds have been more-or-less hands off the court case so far. Who specifically bribed the Justice Department to take sides?
"The mice whose diets included 5% to 15% protein and 40% to 60% carbohydrates lived the longest, up to 150 weeks compared with 100 weeks for those on a diet of about 50% protein."
Even bodybuilders eating protein all day NEVER GET NEAR 50% of their total diet being protein. This article conveniently left out studies of the mice eating other percentages amount of protein and went with an overblown stat to report trying to scare people to get web traffic.
The story is that the US Solicitor General (whose office prepared this brief) is a former top lawyer for the MPAA.
"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious." Obi-Wan Kenobi
Help stamp out iliturcy.
A great way to tell who is accepting money from whom, is to see where they stand on cases like Aereo's. Obama's crew is absolutely on the take from the cable companies. Just like they have taken money from trial lawyers and Rx companies. Their positions have nothing to do with helping the little guy and everything to do with helping themselves and their partners in managing commerce. I have Aereo and Cable and also have media center PC's connected to the big screen and their is NO doubt that for consumers who like televised shows, that for $3o/month Aereo + Netflix + Hulu+ could replace a $100/month cable bill and have better viewing choices.
This is exactly the same thing going on in the prepaid phone space. Why spend $100/month for ATT when I can buy my own phone and then for $45/month get exactly the same service from Net10. Granted customer service sucks on Net10, but once you are setup, who cares...
Prepaid phone service is rapidly reaching a tipping point, like it already has in Europe, where the old business models are failing. The same is going to happen to Cable TV. The only question is when, and what the cable companies will do to survive. Looks like Mr Holders department of injustice is stepping in to help out their friends... Too bad. At best it's only a short term patch to their long term problems....
I expected this to be the case for college aged kids but it's the same for the age group I've just entered as well (35-45). Some of the people in my immediate cirlcle of contacts are IT professionals, some are blue-collar workers and none of us (none) use the TV for anything other than perhaps background noise and some occasional news if there is something breaking. These people very rapidly made the mental shift from TV-by-appointment to no longer really understanding how they made do with that type of entertainment supply.
Being tech- and media-savvy is not a youth thing. It's a bandwidth thing. Bandwidth is cheap and plentiful here and people have adapted their media consumption habits around that.
I mean, time passes. People now in their 40s are "digital natives" if they were somewhat interested in computers in their youth. People in their 50s and early 60s are probably autodidact unless they've worked in IT but even so they are fully competent in handling new tech and new ways of consuming entertainment. Imho, there is little or no difference when it comes to age in tech. There is, however, some difference in how quickly one jumps on fads because experience allows you to better recognize what a fad is.
Now get off my lawn.
must have cleared.
I don't understand the business model. Who is suing Aereo and why? I don't see how the TV broadcasting companies would be angry that someone has, for free, extended the range of their signal.
Here is my understanding of the industry:
Content providers make content.
TV broadcasters pay content providers for content.
TV broadcasters sell ads to companies.
TV broadcasters distribute content + ads.
So content providers profit from broadcasters. And broadcasters profit from advertisers. Aereo forwards the TV broadcasters' signal to more customers. That forwarding includes both the content and the ads. Since the ads are not stripped, the advertisers and TV broadcasters should be happy because each Aereo customer is one more person who sees the ad. I could see how the the content providers might be unhappy unless the TV broadcasters included those Aereo customers in their counts. Are the content licenses based on number of viewers? That's tough to count on a broadcast. If they are NOT then it makes no difference to the content providers. If they ARE, then Aereo would need to provide those numbers to the TV broadcasters.
I must be missing something because this looks like everyone wins.
What about sports? Worth making "an appointment", to me.
/. crowd will talk about how live music is where it is at. Forget about CDs, perform and sell T-shirts.
It is funny how the
But when it comes to sports, we are supposed to...watch it on DVD? Or via some LoQ YouTube put out at some random time in the future?
Where is the consistency?
Plus, ever try to watch sports when you know the result? Or try to avoid learning the result for a day while you wait for it to be put up online?
Also, as soon as you try to replace TV with something else, there are always holes. Trying to replace DVDs with BluRay and there will be holes in your library...forever.
These things can co-exist. They do for me. But I can understand if some can't afford $50/month for Comcast TV. Just don't make it seem like there is only one choice.
I come here for the love