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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."

26 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Those with the money by nurb432 · · Score: 2

    Get to make the rules. Yet another example.

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    1. Re:Those with the money by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

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    2. Re:Those with the money by unitron · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

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    3. Re:Those with the money by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 2

      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.

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    4. Re:Those with the money by Anubis+IV · · Score: 5, Informative

      "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.

    5. Re:Those with the money by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

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    6. Re:Those with the money by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    7. Re:Those with the money by evilviper · · Score: 2

      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.

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  2. In other news.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:In other news.. by Desler · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Many of them are already industry lawyers to begin with.

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

    2. Re:In other news.. by unitron · · Score: 2

      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.

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  3. Thank goodness for Obama by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Thank goodness for Obama by fermion · · Score: 2

      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!

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  4. Re:Just Sad by quitte · · Score: 2

    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.

  5. Re:Just Sad by unitron · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

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  6. Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sorry. XKCD

  7. Re:In my experience.... by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

    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.

  8. Re:In my experience.... by almitydave · · Score: 3, Insightful

    .... 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.

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  9. Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt] by Kohath · · Score: 4, Insightful
  10. Cable companies steal my free TV broadcasts by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 2

    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.

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  11. That's why they call it... by swb · · Score: 2

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

  12. Re:... and nothing of value was lost [nt] by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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  13. Re:its not a public performance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?

  14. Re:Just Sad by jonwil · · Score: 2

    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)

  15. MPAA lawyer runs US Solicitor General by symbolset · · Score: 2

    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

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    1. Re:MPAA lawyer runs US Solicitor General by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      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.

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