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."

Comments

Just Sad

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Just Sad

[quitte]

You might want to look into vdr instead. It's not as flashy but it was very stable years ago. In my opinion it's as a DVR should be.

Re:Just Sad

[unitron]

A Series 3 platform TiVo would let you record digital OTA for $12.95 per month maxium, but that figure is for the entire TiVo service which includes a license to use the software as well as the guide info, and they've always sold the hardware cheap with the idea of making up the loss on selling the service.

In fact, you can probably pick up a used S3 or S3 HD or HD XL with Product Lifetime Service for $300 or less (check area Craigslists), then another $100 for a 2TB WD20EURS to slip into it and $10 -$15 for Low ESR 105 degree rated capacitors to replace the ones in the power supply pro-actively, and the only monthly cost will be the electricity.

Lurk at tivocommunity.com for a while.

You'll also find discussion of Myth and WMC there as well.

When you're paying for Aereo, you're paying as much as anything to have somebody else worry about providing you with an outdoor antenna.

Re:Just Sad

[scottbomb]

Install a TV tuner card and record it yourself. Media Center is the main reason I have a Windows 7 machine in the house, for this very purpose. Set it to record whatever you want and it works.

Re:Just Sad

[mythosaz]

Windows Media Center's primary benefit is a high Wife Acceptance Factor. It's polished well, and that goes a long way.

If you want OTA and WMC, I suggest some Hauppauge cards -- enough to satisfy your need to record multiple channels at once during sweeps without conflicts. Perhaps: http://www.hauppauge.com/site/...

Re:Just Sad

[jedidiah]

High WAF with my MythTV solution yielded carte blanche on my computer purchases. She actually told me to "go get a Mac" to replace my original cobbled together frontend box.

We were a Tivo household before that. So it's not like there were low expectations.

However, the main challenge with OTA is the ANTENNA. That is the trickiest part by far and the one that frustrates so many people into using cable or Aereo.

Re:Just Sad

[vivek7006]

Windows 7 Media Center rocks. Highly recommended. Plus it supports premium cable via cable card. Comcastic douche in my area even give a $2 refund for not using their crappy STB. The only thing I lose is VOD, but I don't give a shit since Netflix and Amazon Prime via Roku is 10 times better than their comcastic service

Re:Just Sad

[msauve]

Aereo simply picks up signals from the public airwaves. There's nothing that's more "public domain" than something so placed into, well, the public domain.

ANYTHING which has ever been broadcast should have lost copyright - that the price for building your business on public resources.

Re:Just Sad

[jonwil]

Thats the whole reason the networks are fighting Aereo so much, everyone who uses Aereo to get OTA TV is (as far as they are concerned) one less person paying Comcast or Time Warner or whoever else for that same TV. And therefore its one less person paying x amount per month (via their cable provider) to the networks. (i.e. Aereo = lost revenue)

Re:Just Sad

[evilviper]

A Series 3 platform TiVo would let you record digital OTA for $12.95 per month maxium

Why would anyone ever bother with Tivo?

eMatic/iView/HomeWorx/ViewTV sell $30-60 "Digital converter boxes" with USB ports. Plug in a portable USB hard drive (most support up to 3TB) and you can record any TV shows you want in 1080i, time-shift the current program, watch any of the sub-channels on the channel you're recording, connect the drive to your computer and watch/edit/reencode them there, etc. Under $100 total for 1TB, with no monthly fees. ATSC has a built-in guide, anyhow, so why pay Tivo to give it to you in a roundabout way?

When you're paying for Aereo, you're paying as much as anything to have somebody else worry about providing you with an outdoor antenna.

At $8/month, you'd pay off even a high-end fringe (60mi) antenna system and cheap DVR (above) in 3 years. Slightly longer if you want to account for a few hours of installation time. Less time if you count the saving of switching your internet service to a lower-speed tier.

Re:Just Sad

[evilviper]

I live at the edge of my broadcast area and I rent, so I can't install a serious outdoor antenna

If you rent a house, or otherwise have any exclusive-use space (eg. in a single-story rental, you're free to stick an antenna on the roof, if you don't damage the building doing so). I've found that chimney-mount straps work quite well for holding an antenna mast to a roof-top central-air condenser unit... Alternatively, a tripod and some guy wires can do the job quite well.

and a change in the weather means a 20 minute break to randomly adjust the antenna to stop the freezing

If weather is affecting your reception, you've just got a crappy antenna system. Buy a nice 8-bay antenna like a Winegard 8800, and a mast-mount preamp like a Winegard LNA-200, and you'll probably see vastly different results.

(I actually preferred analog broadcast: a 70% quality signal was a lot nicer than a video that freezes 18 seconds out of every minute...).

Except that's not the situation at all... I had a number of analog stations that were so far gone you could BARELY tell, if you focused hard enough, that there was a discernible picture and sound buried under the wall of static. After the switchover, they finally became watchable, perfect picture 99% of the time.

What tricks most people into damming digital, is the fact that VHF-lo channels (2-6) were almost universally switched to UHF frequencies, and a few VHF-hi channels (7-13) did the same, too. If you are/were 60-100 miles away from the broadcast tower, or only had a VHF antenna, you'll suddenly find that 2-6 disappeared entirely, or are just hard to pick up. A VHF antenna will pick-up STRONG UHF signals, but NOT WELL. The answer, of course, is getting a good UHF antenna, and mounting it nice and high up a mast.

Re:Just Sad

[jfelix1010]

Thanks, but I would seriously rather just rent the antenna from aereo and skip the installation costs and hassle.

Re:Just Sad

[GTRacer]

What are they stealing? Ignoring the fact that the OTA signals are broadcast willy-nilly into the air for anyone with suitable kit to receive, what's wrong with Aereo renting an antenna local to a market only to someone who registers as local to that same market? Unless they changed their policy, Aereo requires some sort of proof you live in one of their service areas before they'll connect you.

If only locals are receiving a station's broadcast, what's the theft? The "Cablevision remote DVR" case seems to have this idea of leased, physically remote from the user hardware thing sorted.

Re:Just Sad

[unitron]

The antenna question and the some DVR other than a TiVo question are two separate issues.

Although the TiVos I mentioned do offer the flexibility of OTA or cable or both, with the ability to record two programs simultaneously while watching a third while also copying a previously recorded show from another TiVo on the same account or from a PC.

Re:Just Sad

[evilviper]

I never suggested MythTv. The brands of boxes I listed are consumer electronics appliances, NOT COMPUTERS.

Those with the money

[nurb432]

Get to make the rules. Yet another example.

Re:Those with the money

[TheGratefulNet]

80 year old WHAT?

what could any 80 year old law possibly have to do with modern nuances of virtual, cloud, broadcast (in modern times), store-and-forward, proxy, repeat, bridge and route?

those didn't exist at all (in any real sense) 80 yrs ago.

besides, you can't have it both ways: copyright was supposed to expire in a 'normal' period of time, but we kept changing things as things were about to expire, so that public property would not be public YET. if the government won't respect its own laws, why should we?

anyway, copyright is not the same thing it once was, and broadcasting over the air is a trade: you get to use airwaves and you get funding from (lots of places). you have been funded and you chose to transmit data in the clear. what happens after that is NOT your business. it stopped being 'yours' once it hit the public non-encrypted airwaves.

Re:Those with the money

[unitron]

Aereo is a public performance of copyrighted material. You cannot do that. You will get slapped.

A public performance?

You have every right to receive, for free, at no additional cost, any broadcast TV signal your antenna can bring in, and to record it on a DVR, and to have the DVR send it to the TV via Ethernet if you want to.

This is just subcontracting the antenna, DVR, and Ethernet part out to someone else.

Re:Those with the money

[WillAffleckUW]

A normal period of time would be 13 years. With one renewal for the human who wrote it, or his survivors if he died during the first copyright period.

Like it was originally.

Re:Those with the money

[Anubis IV]

"Public" how, exactly? If I have an antenna on my roof and run that signal into my DVR where I then record a show and store it for private viewing, there's nothing illegal about that, right? If I live in an apartment complex and rent an antenna on the roof instead of owning it, but otherwise do everything the same, that's fine too, right? What if I rent the DVR from a third-party like TiVo? Still cool, right? What if I kept the DVR in a different room, far away from the TV? There's nothing illegal about renting an antenna or hiding equipment away in a closet far away from the TV (in fact, most of us prefer to do that already).

That's all that Aereo is, except that the A/V wire connecting the DVR to the TV stretches over the Internet. Each customer rents their own antenna that picks up broadcast signals that only that person can then watch. Their copy of the signal is kept for them, tied to their account, where only they can view it. And Aereo isn't even going against broadcast blackout regions or the like, since the antennas are local to the users. All they're doing is letting the user move the antenna and DVR to a far away equipment closet that the user then rents from them.

So, again I ask: how exactly is it "public"? Hell, how exactly is it any different than just renting a DVR and antenna that are installed at home? If it's that it's "in the cloud", I'm willing to bet that we'd agree that, while ridiculous, it would be perfectly legal to run the necessary A/V cables from Aereo's HQ to my home, so why would using the Internet magically make it illegal? The fact that I have to access it over the Internet doesn't magically make it public, illegal, or otherwise illicit.

Re:Those with the money

[JoeMerchant]

There are quite a few laws older than 80 years with a lot of relevance today, starting with the Bill of Rights.

However, if being in public means anyone is free to follow and video me and my activities, then sell this information for a profit (traffic cams, private investigators, etc.) - I see how repeating broadcast television on the internet, without or even with time-shift delays, should also be free for anyone to undertake as a business.

There will be higher bidders in the courtroom than the individual liberties supporters, copyright will prevail, and Mickey Mouse will not be public domain until well after children as yet unborn are 75 years old.

Re:Those with the money

[Ralph Wiggam]

"Public performance" has the same definition it did 80 years ago. The ways that content can be delivered to the public has changed a lot, but it's all still public performance.

Besides I Love Lucy reruns, all of the content shown on TV has been copyrighted in the last few years. So I'm not sure where you were going with that paragraph.

Re:Those with the money

[AK Marc]

It's a private performance, delayed.

Or are you asserting that placing your TV where someone on the street can see it is a illegal?

Re:Those with the money

[lgw]

Well reasoned, but I think it misses a fundamental point.

It's the public's airways/bandwidth to begin with. Broadcast on the public airwaves should by law be a grant of rights to time/place/format shift however anyone feels like for unchanged content. In private, for a fee, public performance, shouldn't matter, as long as some company isn't replacing the ads or otherwise altering the content. That's what "OTA broadcast" should mean: anyone anywhere can now watch it.

Re:Those with the money

[Jane Q. Public]

"However, if being in public means anyone is free to follow and video me and my activities, then sell this information for a profit (traffic cams, private investigators, etc.) - I see how repeating broadcast television on the internet, without or even with time-shift delays, should also be free for anyone to undertake as a business."

Strictly speaking, no. While what one does in public is theoretically recordable by anybody, that doesn't mean they can use it for profit without your permission. That remains under your control. Legally, that is.

But you do bring up a good point. That would seem to conflict with things like traffic cameras, which are generally run by private firms, for a profit.

Not that I would mind seeing them get shot down. According to studies they seldom do any good, and often actually increase accident rates.

Re:Those with the money

[jedidiah]

> Aereo is a public performance of copyrighted material. You cannot do that. You will get slapped.

Aereo is the rental of an antenna. It's no more a public performance than the rental of a VCR.

This is already settled law despite the attempts of certain people to ensure that only large corporations have rights.

Re:Those with the money

[TheGratefulNet]

that's not what I was talking about. you need to re-read what I posted. I didn't say no old laws ever apply; but ones that were that old and being applied to technology usually fail because communication is vastly different from how it was before, scales have changed, methods, what is publicly funded and what is supposed to be already funded (ie, no double dipping).

Re:Those with the money

[TheGratefulNet]

I disagree.

what was a public broadcast back then is not even close to what is a 'broadcast' now.

and, add to this the notion of 'store and replay later'. you could not DO that back then unless you were a recording studio. today, everyone is a 'recording studio' in terms of being able to save digital content and play it back later.

the # of people you could reach before was limited. now, the rules are all different and you don't have to have them all tuned in at the same freq, in the same area of the world at the same time.

add to this the fact that 'copyright' does not mean the same thing world wide and so when you send out content to the internet, not everyone is bound by US rules!

the world in tech is so different, its not sensible to apply what we considered 'content distribution' to today's world. too much is not applicable and some things we have today were not even conceived of back then.

laws should never be static. they need to be updated to fit the age. copyright was never updated in peoples' favor, only in corporations' favor. that, in itself, means that it was not maintained in a fair and just manner.

Re:Those with the money

[JoeMerchant]

You hit a trip wire with me, I went to a lawyer once asking about civil rights considerations for disabled children and the schools, the bastard sat there, lied to me about several factual points, and dismissed my concerns about the ADA, Free and Appropriate public education, etc. with the total gem "those laws are from the 1960s, does anyone do anything about those anymore?" Guy was a total tool, and drinking buddy with the bad side of the local school board.

Re:Those with the money

[Anubis IV]

Although Aereo might simply be a remote antenna you pay another party to provide, keep in mind that cable companies are required to pay retransmission fees. How is Aereo's service different than cable? After all, if companies that provide traditional Community Antenna TeleVision service must pay, why shouldn't Aereo?

Whenever you broadcast, each person picking up the signal is effectively receiving a copy of the content. The purpose of retransmission fees is to cover those copies. In contrast, Aereo is not making new copies; it's merely working with the copies that have already been produced and to which each of its users is already entitled. That's why it's so important that they have a 1:1 ratio between antennas, storage of content, and user accounts: it proves that each of those users is legally entitled to the copy that Aereo is receiving, storing, and unicasting to them. Were they doing something like having one antenna and allowing anyone to tune into it over the 'net, this would be an entirely different matter.

Re:Those with the money

[Vitriol Angst]

Well I suppose in order for the Broadcasters to maintain the fiction of being broadcasters, they have to broadcast -- but they make money now with a subscription and commercials and syndication.

Having someone RECEIVE the signal and make it easy for you to get the programming -- well, that flies in the face of burying the broadcast signal in the basement, in a filing cabinet, with a sign posted "tiger might kill you."

And a Copyright is a Copy Legacy, to bequeathed to those with the blood of the line of Disney, or the house of Time Warner. Don't look for the barony of News Corp however, in 20 years they drop the pretense and just call themselves House Harkonnen and they will have the spice channel on exclusive contract.

Re:Those with the money

[Rockoon]

How is Aereo's service different than cable?

It effectively isn't ... and thats what the broadcasters are afraid of.

Re:Those with the money

[jabuzz]

Surely it is not antennas that are the issue but the tuners. Because as many people have pointed out most apartment blocks share a single aerial which via a distribution amplifier is fed to each apartment. Heck many houses have a single aerial which via a distribution amplifier feeds more than one television.

Re:Those with the money

[Monoman]

I have yet to hear how exactly Aereo is harming the broadcasters. Nothing they do takes revenue from the broadcasters. If anything they are helping keep the OTA market alive longer.

What it really sounds like is going on is either a money grab so Aereo has to pay the broadcasters like the cable/sat companies or they are just blocking the new guy in the market. I guess another option is "they" (big corp and/or gov) want the OTA market to die off because they are more valuable elsewhere.

Re:Those with the money

[evilviper]

what could any 80 year old law possibly have to do with modern nuances of virtual, cloud, broadcast (in modern times), store-and-forward, proxy, repeat, bridge and route?

I just murdered someone... but you can't arrest me, because it was in the cloud!

Re:Those with the money

[strikethree]

laws should never be static. they need to be updated to fit the age. copyright was never updated in peoples' favor, only in corporations' favor. that, in itself, means that it was not maintained in a fair and just manner.

I disagree. Laws should be static. They should be based on principles so that they do not need to change with each new technology. Search and seizure of personal effects? Applies to email and phone conversations now as much as it did to letters in the 1700s. The current unconstitutional interpretation is absolute shit because it violates the principle behind the 4th. THAT is the real problem.

Re:Those with the money

[evilviper]

copyright was never updated in peoples' favor, only in corporations' favor

This is a meaningless assertion. Whatever way a law goes, it benefits some corporations, while disadvantaging different corporations. For instance, CD and DVD recorder sales benefit tech corporations, but possibly at the expense of motion picture corporations.

And changes to copyright law since publications have absolutely benefited the public... Fair use, to name but one (and entirely destroy your absolutist assertions).

http://www.law.cornell.edu/usc...

when you send out content to the internet, not everyone is bound by US rules!

That's true, but has ZERO affect on US laws. If you're sending out video on the internet, you have to follow the laws of your locality. People in other countries may have different restrictions on what they can do, but it doesn't change your rights and restrictions.

the world in tech is so different, its not sensible to apply what we considered 'content distribution' to today's world. too much is not applicable and some things we have today were not even conceived of back then.

I disagree entirely. Laws should be general enough that they don't ever need to be updated to suit the technology of the moment. Your position is why we end up with 10,000 page long laws on the storage and sale of cantaloupes...

If you can't describe right and wrong without resorting to specific technicalities and intricacies of current technologies, then what you're trying to enshrine in law just doesn't belong there. Notice that the internet didn't change MURDER laws one damn bit.

Re:Those with the money

[jfengel]

It undercuts the local affiliates, some of which are owned by the networks themselves and others have exclusivity contracts with the networks. It's the affiliates (and their ability to insert local advertising) who lose out. And since there's still a chunk of the market that only gets OTA signals, the broadcasters and affiliates are reluctant to give that up.

Part of the government would be only too happy to let OTA die and reclaim the bandwidth, but other parts are protective of that fraction of the country who only get that signal. They are poor and frequently rural, and they don't want them to be left out.

Re:Those with the money

[Monoman]

Nice try but Aereo does NOT alter the broadcasted content. All ads (local, regional, and national, etc) are included in the recording. The recording is only available to the customer and the customer has to live in the region so the ads are not being shown to any unintended receivers.

Re:Those with the money

[jfengel]

Er, yes, I just realized that upon further research. I withdraw my comment, and return to being baffled.

Re:Those with the money

[unitron]

This has a lot less to do with the cable monopolies than it does with the broadcast monopolies.

Remember, the law the broadcasters were pushing for back in the early to mid-80s would have forced cable to carry all broadcast channels in the area, whether the cable customers had any interest in them or not, and forced the cable companies to pay the broadcasters for that "privilege".

The cable companies objection is that Aereo isn't forced to inflate prices to cover payments to broadcasters the way the cable companies are.

In other news..

[Anonymous Coward]

The same Justice Department officials will soon leave to work for the various broadcast networks.

Re:In other news..

[Desler]

Many of them are already industry lawyers to begin with.

http://www.wired.com/threatlev...

Re:In other news..

[unitron]

The same Justice Department officials will soon leave to work for the various broadcast networks.

Yeah, too bad there aren't some in there planning to go to work for the cable giants to act as a counterbalance to them.

Thank goodness for Obama

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank goodness we've got the Obama administration to bring some common sense back to government and stand up for the little guy.

Re:Thank goodness for Obama

[fermion]

This is my thought. Now that the Obama administration opposes Aereo, we can expect all the conservatives, tea party people, Ted Cruz, to support it. Those of us who like Aereo are all but guaranteed a win!

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[ackthpt]

As I have watched about 1 hour of TV over the past 10 years, I'm non-plussed. I have always felt the broadcasters were allowed to run roughshod over the public, with plenty of help from the federal government. It's a new century, can we start looking beyond 20th century business models, yet?

In my experience....

[mark-t]

.... 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.

Re:In my experience....

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously don't live in Manhattan (the first market they hit) where OTA coverage can be extremely spotty, don't want local programming while traveling for business, or to otherwise time/place shift your content. I doubt this is their endgame, but I get what they are trying to bring.

Re:In my experience....

[Applehu Akbar]

That would have been a great service model, which is why it couldn't possibly last. Fox TV, and now ABC, limit the free recent episodes to viewvers who can "verify" their cable service. In both cases, you can only "verify" if you have an account with a tiny list of services that are mostly unknowns. I get these stations through one of the nation's largest cable providers, but it's never in the select list. Torrents, here I come.

Re:In my experience....

[almitydave]

.... 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.

Probably the needs of those for whom those qualifiers are problematic.

Re:In my experience....

[alen]

doesn't time warner provide you with a free or some low cost box to decrypt the newly encrypted local feed?
used to be you could just plug the cable into your TV

Re:In my experience....

[alen]

this is why i can't wait for comcast to buy time warner cable
comcast is always on the streaming list of providers

Re:In my experience....

[mark-t]

Who said anything about watching OTA? I was talking about watching stuff streamed from the network website. In my experience, most of the popular shows seem to be available a day or so after airing, which isn't really *THAT* big a deal... you just shift your tv watching schedule by one day.

Re:In my experience....

[hondo77]

With ABC, not so much:

Verify your TV provider to watch ABC programming at no additional cost.*

* You must verify your participating TV provider account for access to certain WATCH ABC on demand features. It's included in your TV subscription services. Show and episode availability are subject to change.

Re:In my experience....

[lgw]

Other than the commercials, what's overinflated? OTA broadcast should by rights mean "anyone anywhere can now watch this content (unaltered) in any way they choose". Their our airways, after all. The only thing lost if any program broadcast ever anywhere was available for streaming unaltered on the internet (legally) would be the ease of counting the audience size for pricing the commercials.

Re:In my experience....

[jedidiah]

> So it's trying to fill the needs of people who have an overinflated sense of entitlement? Okay.... got it.

Yes. The "overinflated sense of entitlement" to something that is BROADCAST FOR FREE on the PUBLIC AIRWAVES for EVERYONE.

Yeah. That's quite a "sense of entitlement": expecting to be able to receive a broadcast of a TV station in their broadcast area.

What's next? Perhaps they will expect clean air and fresh water.

Re:In my experience....

[mark-t]

I get that too... but only for shows that are older than a week.

Re:In my experience....

[mark-t]

I dunno... seems to be fine for me for every network I watch. I don't have cable and watch all my TV streamed from the networks. The only restriction I'm finding is that I can't watch shows older than a week (I have to enter subscription info for that), so I have to watch them sooner than that. Several of the shows that I watch are on ABC.

Re:In my experience....

[jonwil]

But what about all the stuff they dont put on the streaming sites.

Plenty of sporting events aired on OTA TV but which you cant legally stream over the internet (or cant legally stream live or cant legally stream unless you have a specific ISP or provider).

Or for that matter try finding a stream of something like the local news and weather forecast from he local network.
Or even the national news programming (including things like the Today Show on NBC).

Aereo will (if you are in their service area) give you all that programming.

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry. XKCD

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[Kohath]

Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own a TV.

Cable companies steal my free TV broadcasts

[WillAffleckUW]

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.

Re:Cable companies steal my free TV broadcasts

[unitron]

"Cable companies steal my free TV broadcasts

Is anyone doing anything about that?"

Actually, the OTA broadcasts that cable receives and "re-transmits" aren't being stolen because the cable companies have to pay those local broadcasters (which of course really means the cable subscribers do).

And the viewers via cable are just as much a part of the ratings as the OTA viewers, so ad rates reflect that higher number.

Re:Cable companies steal my free TV broadcasts

[WillAffleckUW]

You call it fair use, I call it theft from the public.

Same thing.

Re:Cable companies steal my free TV broadcasts

[unitron]

Who calls what theft from the public?

Did you used to be Will in Seattle?

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[Anonymous Coward]

you are so 2000 and late

Foolish...

[Karmashock]

Cord cutters might have actually watched their advertisements on occasion. Now... not a chance.

They just marginalized themselves for nothing.

That's why they call it...

[swb]

The Golden Rule. Those with the gold get to make the rules.

Re:Open air broadcast is not free to do whatever w

[Overzeetop]

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.

Re:its not a public performance

[mysidia]

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.

Your landlord hasn't hung out a single large PCB with everyone's antenna being a small button-sized module attached to it.

But I think the bigger problem for them is They dynamically assign antennas. It's not like you're renting a specific antenna.

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[mythosaz]

Shit. Beaten out by refresh!

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[hairyfeet]

Working at the shop I talk to a LOT of college aged kids, know what I've found? Frankly TV is The Lawrence Welk Show, something old folks liked that the kids honestly don't understand and don't want. They are used to having the net and "shows by appointment" is just something they really "don't get" and if they can't watch a show on THEIR schedule? Then they just don't care, they really don't.

Honestly the only young folks I found with TVs were the really poor, those without net use TV as a form of cheap entertainment. Even my fiance who swore "I'm not gonna be able to stand going without TV" when she moved in has been TV free for almost a year and the USB cap card I gave her for her lappy sits unused. Once I showed her the wealth of instant entertainment? She never went back.

So the broadcasters can bribe the government all they want, like the *.A.A they can't change the fact that their model has gone the way of the 8-track. The future is crowd funding and instant gratification, the days of "tune in, same bat time, same bat channel" as as dated as Adam West's Batman.

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[dryeo]

It largely depends on choices. I live where internet is dial up only at 26.4KBs (no cell service either) and especially for the wife when the last couple of TV stations went digital and therefore no longer receivable it was quite the bummer.
The 8 track was replaced by something as easy to acquire and the same cost while being an improvement. TV has disappeared for many on the fringes and only has a decent replacement for some and is much more expensive. One time cost for a TV ($10 at the thrift store) plus one time cost for antenna (big used one was $50) while internet is a recurring cost.

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[ackthpt]

Well, if you people would stop talking about TV and the shit you watch, you wouldn't hear anyone tell you that they don't watch TV.

That's about the size of it. Where I work most people watch a few shows and avidly follow one or two. The subject of shows or even commercials they have found entertaining pop up occasionally and I just gently remind them I don't watch TV. I just haven't been interested and watching most shows I find a trying experience.

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[speedlaw]

I have kids this age....he's +1000000. "tv" does not exist for them other than as a bigger screen hanging on a wall. 95% of the time they use it is for streaming anyway

Mini Apartment

[PaddyM]

How is this different than leasing a very tiny apartment somewhere?

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[mrchaotica]

One time cost for a TV ($10 at the thrift store) plus one time cost for antenna (big used one was $50)

Those still work, if you add the one time cost for a digital-to-analog converter box ($40, or $0 back when they had the vouchers). Contrary to popular belief, there's not anything special about digital TV as far as antennas are concerned, except that fewer channels are on VHF.

Fundamentals

[onix]

The reality is that cable would turn off all OTA if it could. It's not an issue of whether the content is public.

Re:its not a public performance

[Anonymous Coward]

OK how about this.

If I buy a DVR and antenna and put it on my roof am I in the right? - Yep
Ok, rent a DVR and antenna and put them on my roof? - I think we can both agree yes.
OK, rent a DVR and antenna, and whenever I want them they get mailed to me, I put them on my roof and when I am done I mail them back? NO guarantee I get the same antenna or DVR, but I think we still agree this is ok?

What if I rent a DVR and antenna, and rent some space at my neighbours house to store them. And run a long thick HDMI cable over the fence to plug the whole thing into my TV. Am I ok now??

OK; I get sick of the long cable I am running over the fence, and replace it with an ethernet cable, and use a PVR that has a web interface. - Still OK?

OK, I replace the ethernet cable with 2 wireless routers, both of which I am renting - still ok?

OK, so I get sick of using the wireless routers, and instead plug it into my neighbours internet connection, and use a point to point encrypted VPN link between my neighbours house and my house. Have I gone too far yet?

OK I got sick of maintaining the VPN link, and just put a password on it. Still good?

My neighbour sells his house to a DATACentre company and builds a datacentre on his plot of land, but dont worry cause I just ask them if I can keep renting that space and go back to my wireless routers solution. How am I going here?

OK, finally, I got sick of my wireless routers again, and once more plug into the datacentres internet connection. Is this legal?

Remember; every time I am done watching TV I ask the neighbour to return the antenna to the rental place. and when I want to watch it again he goes and picks one up from the rental place.

Which part of the above is where I started going wrong? When did what I do become a public performance?

Re:Open air broadcast is not free to do whatever w

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[dryeo]

Digital really doesn't carry as far as analog, at least in mountainous terrain, especially now that there are no low band VHF channels. Bought a converter when the switch happened, tested and returned it. Tried again when the last VHF repeater went off the air and same thing. (before we didn't realize there was a repeater in the opposite direction)

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[dryeo]

Trees and mountains block the satellites currently

Re:its not a public performance

[russotto]

But I think the bigger problem for them is They dynamically assign antennas. It's not like you're renting a specific antenna.

What difference does it make, as long as it's only one at a time? I rent one antenna for "The Real Housewives of New Jersey", and later I rent a different antenna for A Very Special Episode of "Law And Order: SVU"... exactly how does the changing of the antenna affect copyright?

MPAA lawyer runs US Solicitor General

[symbolset]

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

Re:MPAA lawyer runs US Solicitor General

[drinkypoo]

When Obama appointed a Monsanto stooge to decide what we were permitted to eat, that was my sign. They really are trying to kill and enslave us.

Re:MPAA lawyer runs US Solicitor General

[compro01]

RIAA also. He's the lawyer from Capitol v. Thomas.

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[N1AK]

When I'm talking about holidays, I'd think someone who always needs to point out they don't take them was a chump. The same would be true if it was concerts, sporting events, computer games and yes, shock horror, television. It doesn't matter how much people talk about TV, you aren't obligated to go on about not watching it every time they discuss it and doing so comes across as pretty pathetic not as a sign of a more culturally enhanced existence.

I didn't watch any TV bar the odd news bulletin for years, I probably watch ~1-2 hours a week now via iPlayer/Netflix. I don't think anyone I know, who hasn't stayed at my house, would know and that's not because I hide it like a dark secret; it's because I don't inject it into every conversation I can as an attempt to build an image. There's some really great TV out there, so depriving yourself of it on principle just comes across as stunting yourself for ideological reasons. There's just been an excellent show on the relationship between the Kaizer, Tzar and British King in the run up to WW1 for example.

The check

[Anonymous Coward]

must have cleared.

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[evilviper]

Working at the shop I talk to a LOT of college aged kids, know what I've found? Frankly TV is The Lawrence Welk Show, something old folks liked that the kids honestly don't understand and don't want.

Except the stats show the exact opposite of your anecdotal experience. Younger people are MORE likely to use an OTA antenna than older people. Poor people are always disproportionately represented, but they're absolutely not the only group where OTA viewership is growing.

"The number of households relying on OTA reception only is also growing, [...] Growth is especially strong amongst younger households,"

"One in five young households never bothered to get a TV subscription to begin with."

"Also, 28 percent of all households with a head of household under the age of 35 use an antenna instead of a pay-TV subscription."

http://broadcastengineering.co...

No doubt internet streaming contributes to the trend, but it's mostly a lot of OTA antennas (and DVRs). The economics of broadcast are so much better than unicast, not to mention the increasing prices for high-speed internet access.

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[ganjadude]

im not sure telling everyone that you dont have a tv is any more productive than watching tv TBH

Can someone explain this case to me?

[MobyDisk]

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.

Sports

[justthinkit]

What about sports? Worth making "an appointment", to me.

It is funny how the /. crowd will talk about how live music is where it is at. Forget about CDs, perform and sell T-shirts.
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.

Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt]

[david_thornley]

It's a matter of degree. For any given concert, sporting event, opera, etc., there's no real expectation that I attended it. There is an expectation that I have television reception, so I wind up mentioning it now and then. There is indeed some excellent TV, but I generally find that isn't what I'm watching with TV reception available. My wife and I find it generally better for ourselves to not have easy reception. I don't know what's better for you.