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Aereo Files For Bankruptcy
An anonymous reader writes: After losing its Supreme Court case in June and briefly attempting to transform itself into a cable company, Aereo is now filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy. Their service worked by letting people stream over-the-air television to their internet-connected devices. The content industry pushed back, and though Aereo argued its way through several lower courts, they say, "The U.S. Supreme Court decision effectively changed the laws that had governed Aereo's technology, creating regulatory and legal uncertainty. And while our team has focused its energies on exploring every path forward available to us, without that clarity, the challenges have proven too difficult to overcome."
Once again, the industry giants managed to thwart innovation to maintain the status quo.
The summary should provide some background about who this person or company or whatever is.
A lot of us just don't have the time or interest in following every weirdly-named hipster organization that exists.
Yeah, I could google this info, but I'm not going to. The summary should tell me.
Do not feed their useless parisitism on our culture and public domain.
If you must be entertained, find alternative sources, from indie stuff all the way to pirating.
We must do this until their backs are broken.
They will fight.
There will be casualties.
We must not stop or compromise.
Silence is a state of mime.
Open source your software, give it to the world and we all use it - if they are that afraid of you!!
Thank you for trying.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision effectively changed the laws
The existing laws defined them as a cable company. They were not very smart to think otherwise. The laws may need to go away, but that was always the correct interpretation.
Even when the USA exports its special interest-written policies to the rest of the world through trade agreements?
"The U.S. Supreme Court decision effectively changed the laws that had governed Aereo's technology..."
De-facto trampling of the separation of powers seems to be the order of the day. If I go into a bank with a weapon and tell a cashier I'm going to take money without declaring and announcing I'm committing a bank robbery, I'm still robbing the bank, right? Doing something informally or explicitly has the same effect. Maybe it should open up the possibility of an appeal.
From the President, to Congress, to the Supreme Court, nobody seems to be taking seriously the bit about defending and preserving the Constitution. It seems that when you come from the Ivy League you don't need to keep your oaths, or even think about what they mean because you know better anyways. "Why should I obey boundaries and go through a process when I can affect change right now with the stroke of a pen! That's getting things done!" That's only part of the problem and there's plenty of blame to spread around.
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
Increasingly there is only one viable solution. Vote with your wallet. Period. No cable, no movies, no music. Nothing.
I don't see how that can be made to work for most people without something drastic like joining the Amish. For "no cable", how would people living outside the range of fiber or fast DSL get broadband Internet without cable? For "no music", how can you do your shopping if part of what you pay for the products that the store sells goes toward licensing the background music played over the speakers in the store's ceiling? And if even if you choose to write your own music instead, what can you do to make sure that you didn't accidentally copy something created in the past 95 years?
The Supreme Court decision was not put Aereo out of business; all it did was rule that in retransmitting broadcasts Aereo should be operating as a cable company. But when Aereo was not allowed to operate as a cable carrier as the SCOTUS directed, that's when we knew that a monopoly was in operation.
> The existing laws defined them as a cable company. They were not very smart to think otherwise. The laws may need to go away, but that was always the correct interpretation.
The existing laws did no such thing. The existing laws did not even address them. Furthermore, they were going out of their way to conform to what legal precedents have been set.
The "legal theory" used by the Supreme Court in this case was a national embarrassment.
Sometimes, it doesn't matter so much if you do the "right thing" or the "wrong thing" but how you do it. This was done in such a wrong manner that the consequences of that could be far more harmful than the general "thumbs up" or "thumbs down".
"Walks like a duck" should embarrass anyone posting here.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
So you go no cable, you're then paying 1 of the 2 telecoms.... That's "better"? They're all equally corrupt, and not even in meaningfully different ways.
As for music, you're fine, as long as you don't publicly perform nor distribute it. If you do wind up doing either, and there's a question of copying, pay the $0.01 cent per performance fee and you're good.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision effectively changed the laws
The existing laws defined them as a cable company. They were not very smart to think otherwise. The laws may need to go away, but that was always the correct interpretation.
That's incorrect... If they were defined as a cable company, they could pay compulsory royalties and carry the content legally. However, the District Court recently held that no, they are not a cable company, and have no ability to pay those royalties for a license.
So, in essence, you have the Supreme Court saying that they're not NOT a cable company, and the District Court saying that they're NOT a cable company. It leaves them in a position where they are neither a cable company nor NOT a cable company, and therefore can never carry broadcast content, regardless of whether they want to pay for it or not.
Look for one of the "entertainment giants" to pick up the scraps, rebrand it and sell it somehow.
I'll bet for awhile we'll be able to pick up some only-slightly-used TV air antennas cheaply...
OK - that's where it gets ridiculous. I agreed with the first ruling - but thought it would be better for everyone if the law were changed. But then I stopped following the story. If they're not being allowed to pay the royalties, then that's too silly for words.
Well, from what I've seen, the content producers are about to feel a world of hurt. Having a son of my own, and watching what he and his friends do, one of the many things I've noticed about the up and coming next generation is that they don't watch TV AT ALL. Not a single minute. I guess the content producers will finally get what they deserve, but it will just take another 5-10 years before they feel the pain they have caused themselves.
Well I lost all faith with the ACA ruling where it was ruled not a tax (used to decide standing) and then in a different part of the same ruling a tax (to determine if it was constitutional). If you are for or against Obama Care it was just a bad ruling. At leas with other rulings there seemed to be some logical coherent reasoning even if most would agree the court created a bad ruling. Then again I am young enough to not have paid much attention to what the court has done until recent so maybe others have other examples of truly shitty legal theory like "Walks like a duck" or "it is not a tax and a tax at the same time" coming from the court.
Time to offend someone
They wanted to be treated like a CATV (Community Antenna TeleVision) system, but that rule book was thrown away in the 1980s when cable networks showed up, then in the 1990s broadcast stations got money for retransmission rights. Aereo pretended like the stations didn't have a right to that money, and that was their fatal error.
Do not buy anything these companies offer. No cable, no movies, no music. Nothing. Do not feed their useless parisitism on our culture and public domain.
If you must be entertained, find alternative sources, from indie stuff all the way to pirating.
Disney has been taking significant risks with films with serious geek cred --- Wreak-It Ralph. Guardians of the Galaxy, Big Hero Six --- and has been handsomely rewarded in return.
The geek is defined by pop culture and his talk of boycott is hot air. ThinkGeek
The paying customer gets programming like Sherlock and The Game of Thrones and a voice in future productions.
The pirate gets whatever crumbs he can sweep off the floor.
I grew up in an area that was very hilly. Signal was poor and cable was expensive. So I clearly remember my dad trying to fix the antenna all the time to improve the signal. I do not see why renting an antenna at a better location should be illegal.
The C in CATV comes from "Community Antenna TeleVision" ... yes, I'm old. There was a time where we'd mount a receive antenna on a tower tall enough to reach into town, add an amplifier and run cable down the hill into the town. Much of the population in Appalachia is not that far from regional centers, but deep enough into the hollars that you can't build a tower tall enough in your yard to see the broadcast antennas.
so, yes, in this (deprecated) understanding of CATV, Aero is very much like CATV.
OK - that's where it gets ridiculous. I agreed with the first ruling - but thought it would be better for everyone if the law were changed. But then I stopped following the story. If they're not being allowed to pay the royalties, then that's too silly for words.
There are royalties for "must carry", but almost no commercial station operates under those rules any more with cable companies. They have moved to "re-transmission consent", which means that Aereo was not allowed to use the "must carry" regulations and fees (Aereo was trying to force the local stations to follow rules that they do not have to agree to). And most stations (at least in the areas Aereo operated) were owned by the networks, who only agree to consent to carriage if you also carry the other stations that they own/operate. So, to get ABC you would have to agree to carry ESPN (for example), and that means Aereo would have been just another cable company, with cable company rates, and cable company bundles. With no compelling offering possible, it was game over (for Aereo).
It is noteworthy that a previous SCOTUS decision would have allowed Aereo to exist and thrive in these days, but Congress overrode that decision with a new law. SCOTUS followed the law. So did the lower courts. What needs to change are the copyright laws. Good luck with that.
Comcast and TimeWarner buys another round of drinksfor themselves.
If the Supreme Court had ruled in Aereo's favor, the broadcasters would have just bought a new law. All the court did is save them some time and money.
http://www.nagaiah.com/
Well I lost all faith with the ACA ruling where it was ruled not a tax (used to decide standing) and then in a different part of the same ruling a tax (to determine if it was constitutional).
True. Precedents are a bigger problem than Presidents. They are just destroying the Constitution by trying to rewrite laws from the court bench. It's slippery slopes all around.