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."

Comments

One solution

[wbr1]

Increasingly there is only one viable solution. Vote with your wallet. Period. 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.

We must do this until their backs are broken.

They will fight.
There will be casualties.
We must not stop or compromise.

Re:innovation thwarted

[afidel]

Actually, after the case was remanded the copyright office said that while they were a CATV system they could not just pay the compulsory licensing fees for some reason, it was a bizarre Catch 22 situation where they were a cable system for purposes of public retransmission under copyright law, but not for licensing purposes. Frankly it struck me as yet more proof of how corrupt and dysfunctional the system is.

Re:innovation thwarted

[jedidiah]

> Innovation? They were a CATV system who didn't want to pay their statutory licensing fees.

No, not really. Not at all actually.

First they are nothing like a CATV system. That's just the lame ass "walks like a duck" nonsense from the Supremes. However, once declared a CATV system by a bunch of senile old luddites, they actually did try to pay their statutory licensing feeds.

Lesser judges wouldn't let them.

They were either a CATV system or not a CATV depending on the way the wind was blowing and the judge du jour and the will of the incumbent monopolies.