US Supreme Court rules Aereo's streaming service is illegal under copyright law

WorldWatcher said:

....

I'm now thinking of buying a Slingbox. It connects to me Antenna/Cable Box and will allow me to stream video to my laptop or smartphone while I'm out of the house, they are making profit on content they didn't produce.

>>>>

Click to expand...

Better buy that Slingbox soon, this ruling, or a similar one using this one as a precedent, could be used to ban them.

Sherman123 said:

I'm usually very skeptical of established industries claims in cases like this but I'm confused as to how this isn't a violation of the cable companies rights. Isn't Aereo essentially re-broadcasting their content for profit by coordinating these antenna installations? I'm not sure they are worthy of too much sympathy. Either way I'm not sure why this would have such an impact... who doesn't just stream everything these days?

Click to expand...

Aereo only uses over-the-air broadcast signals.

ttwtt78640 said:

The bottom line is that Aereo sells "free" content produced by others; without that content then they have nothing to sell.

Click to expand...

Aereo does not strip out the advertisements that are included. If viewers don't use the DVR function to skip commercials, they are helping the broadcasters improve their ratings and the advertisers get more eyeballs. Even if Aereo customers use the DVR to skip commercials, the advertisers will have no way of knowing that, so the advertising rates would still increase if there are a significant number of Aereo viewers.

AJiveMan said:

I'm sorta glad this happened because I'd heard that broadcast companies or corporations were pondering suspending or doing away with OTA transmissions. Since I have neither cable or satellite television, and rely only on OTA broadcasts, it would put me out in the cold with no television to watch, I'd end up having to pay someone for some content.

Click to expand...

They wouldn't do that, they still make money with their broadcasts.

WorldWatcher said:

From your own link: "Aereo leased each user an individual remote antenna,[6][7][8] allowing subscribers to view live broadcast television and allowed users to record the broadcasts for later viewing.[6] "


Aereo had no control over what channel the consumer recorded. The leased the hardware.


>>>>

Click to expand...

That may be the theory but I doubt that is the actual practice. It would be stupid to put 10K antennae and 10K receivers in NYC rather than use a few antennae and a few receivers tuned to each of 50 (or so) desired NYC broadcast channels - the same 50 digital signals can then be streamed to (or recorded for) each of 10K users.

AliHajiSheik said:

It's a shame that people don't think that content creators have the right to control how their content is distributed. Yes, the content is over air but the content providers have agreed to have it distributed this way. If the service didn't charge, then I think think they would have been on better standing.

Click to expand...

The viewers pay for the content by watching the commercials. It is legal for viewers to have a DVR and skip the commercials. Aereo only offers convenience and the ability to watch away from home.

ttwtt78640 said:

That may be the theory but I doubt that is the actual practice. It would be stupid to put 10K antennae and 10K receivers in NYC rather than use a few antennae and a few receivers tuned to each of 50 (or so) desired NYC broadcast channels - the same 50 digital signals can then be streamed to (or recorded for) each of 10K users.

Click to expand...

From what I have read, they actually do have an antennae and DVR for each customer in order to comply with the law.

Hard Truth said:

Aereo does not strip out the advertisements that are included. If viewers don't use the DVR function to skip commercials, they are helping the broadcasters improve their ratings.

Click to expand...

Assuming that they are in the advertiser's viewing area yes, but many ads are local and many Aereo users are not. If they were local then they could access these free broadcast signals w/o paying any Aereo fees at all.

ttwtt78640 said:

Assuming that they are in the advertiser's viewing area yes, but many ads are local and many Aereo users are not. If they were local then they could access these free broadcast signals w/o paying any Aereo fees at all.

Click to expand...

I believe Aereo will only provide an antennae near where you live. In areas of cities with a lot of tall buildings receiving all the available signals over the air may not be possible without cable, Aereo, satellite dish or a master antennae on top of your building. I believe that is why Aereo launched in NYC.

AliHajiSheik said:

It's a shame that people don't think that content creators have the right to control how their content is distributed. Yes, the content is over air but the content providers have agreed to have it distributed this way. If the service didn't charge, then I think think they would have been on better standing.

Click to expand...

Kind of misstatement there. Content Creators had and have total control of how their product was destributed. Creators created content. They sold it to sell it to one of two major market paradigms: (a) major networks that broadcast it to the public over the air (OTA) using advertisers as the revenue source to fund operations, or (b) cable/satellite/fiber-optic distributors that charge the consumer directly for context.


*******************************

Kind of an aside story, ignore it if you aren't interested.

About a month ago we went through the annual dance with our cable provider of about 20-years since we moved here from my last overseas assignment. Our bill was going to go from $103 per month (mid-tier cable, phone, and 25/6Mps Internet**) to about $175 per month for the same plane. The Dance occurred and we took the cable box into the store we could get new discounts for a year and out bill would go to $127 per month. They of course viewed it as a $50 "savings" instead of a 22% rate increase. We had only one cable box in the Family Room and no DVR.

Nope wasn't going to happen. So we dropped phone, lowed the cable package to "Economy" (which had pretty much all the channels we watched anyway), and kept high speed internet at the same rate. Our rate is now $83 per month so now they are actually generating about 20% LESS revenue per month and the only thing we lost was (a) phone service which was no big deal as my wife and I both have cell phones, (b) a whole bunch of channels we never watched, and (c) "On Demand" prime-time network viewing (basically you can select pretty much any show to watch on your schedule instead of the "broadcast" schedule.f

Now I just place my laptop next to the TV, connect and HDMI cable and watch shows in HD streamed from the network website so I can still watch shows on my schedule and not be tied to specific dates/times.

I've already spec'd out the components and will be doing a HTPC (Home Theater Personal Computer). It will have dual tuners (allows you to watch one channel and record another) and a 2 or 3 TB hard-drive to function as a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) or as it's commonly called a DVR. Once that's fully up and running cable can go away without much impact on viewing options all together. The biggest headache will be noting all the places we've used the cable companies email as the primary email contact for personal use and other businesses (doctors, dentists, pest control, cell phone company, etc, etc, etc) and switch them over to Gmail (or Yahoo or Hotmail).

Case = Silverstone ML04
CPU Intel Core i3-4130
Hard Drive = Western Digital Green 2TB or 3TB
Optical Drive = DVD or Blu-Ray
Memory = Crucial Ballistix Sport 4GB DDR3
Motherboard = Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H (Micro ATX)
OS = Windows (not sure yet whether 7 or 8)
Power Supply = Corsair CX430M
Solid State Drive = Samsung 840 Evo 120GB
Tuner = Hauppauge 1213 Dual TV Tuner
Wireless mouse/keyboard

Optional:
Graphics = Zotac GeForce GTX 650 1GB
Wireless = TP-Link TL-WDN3800 Dual-Band
Bump the memory to 8GB

The plan is by this time next year when the current "discounts" expire, we won't be using the cable company for anything except high speed internet (unless Verizon FIOS, which is in the area offers a more competitive rate for internet.)


**Speed tests actually show a consistent 30/6.5Mps connection.


>>>>

AliHajiSheik said:

It's a shame that people don't think that content creators have the right to control how their content is distributed. Yes, the content is over air but the content providers have agreed to have it distributed this way. If the service didn't charge, then I think think they would have been on better standing.

Click to expand...

So is it illegal for my to build my own HTPC and watch content at my own schedule or distribute it to my mobile devices (such as smartphones or laptops) in my home our outside my home?

How about "Slingbox"? The device allows you to take OTA content from an antenna or a cable box output and make it available to your devices outside the home to your mobile devices. Neighbor down the street has one, he's in the Air Force and while deployed overseas they put a second cable box in the back bedroom. Using Slingbox he could distribute his home cable service to watch. With the IR blaster he could even set his own channels to watch.


Slingbox.com - Turn Your Laptop, Smartphone or Tablet into a TV


>>>>

ttwtt78640 said:

That may be the theory but I doubt that is the actual practice. It would be stupid to put 10K antennae and 10K receivers in NYC rather than use a few antennae and a few receivers tuned to each of 50 (or so) desired NYC broadcast channels - the same 50 digital signals can then be streamed to (or recorded for) each of 10K users.

Click to expand...

You can doubt it all you want. The founder of the company is an engineer and designed the system using thousands and thousands of dime sized antennas in an array. When a consumer accessed their account they were assigned one - and only one - antenna to view content.

The banks of antennas were scalable, subscriptions grow - add another bank of antennas. The rest of the playback (network storage and input/output) was also scaled.

They DID NOT record one copy of the OTA broadcast and retransmit it to different customers. Each individual customer was watching their own individual feed from an individual antenna assigned to them.

You might want to do some research on the company and the legal documents that explain how it worked. Here is a good repository of background information -->> American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. v. Aereo, Inc. : SCOTUSblog



>>>>

Hard Truth said:

From what I have read, they actually do have an antennae and DVR for each customer in order to comply with the law.

Click to expand...

To be honest the "DVR" is a virtual DVR - server and hard-drive farms, the consumer is leasing space not an individual DVR.



>>>>

ttwtt78640 said:

Assuming that they are in the advertiser's viewing area yes, but many ads are local and many Aereo users are not. If they were local then they could access these free broadcast signals w/o paying any Aereo fees at all.

Click to expand...

Again false, as per the legal pref's - Aereo would use network location information to determine if you were withing the broadcasters geographic area. If you were outside the area the stream would not be available.

Let's say you are a New York City customer, while in the NYC area you can access your account and watch content on the equipment you have leased. However if you travel to Washington DC for business when you access your account you would be notified that you were out of the viewing area and that the service was not available.

Services were only available inside the geographic broadcast area based on FCC reception maps.

>>>>

Hard Truth said:

They wouldn't do that, they still make money with their broadcasts.

Click to expand...

What would stop them? fear?

WorldWatcher said:

So is it illegal for my to build my own HTPC and watch content at my own schedule or distribute it to my mobile devices (such as smartphones or laptops) in my home our outside my home?

How about "Slingbox"? The device allows you to take OTA content from an antenna or a cable box output and make it available to your devices outside the home to your mobile devices. Neighbor down the street has one, he's in the Air Force and while deployed overseas they put a second cable box in the back bedroom. Using Slingbox he could distribute his home cable service to watch. With the IR blaster he could even set his own channels to watch.


Slingbox.com - Turn Your Laptop, Smartphone or Tablet into a TV


>>>>

Click to expand...

I don't know if it is illegal or even if it is against the wishes of the content owners. There is no doubt that there are shades of gray in this discussion. Perhaps the only distinction s between this service and a slingbox is that the content isn't being stored on a slingbox and there is a one-time charge to buy the equipment.

Hard Truth said:

The viewers pay for the content by watching the commercials. It is legal for viewers to have a DVR and skip the commercials. Aereo only offers convenience and the ability to watch away from home.

Click to expand...

Nothing you write goes against what I say about content creators controlling how their content is distributed. If I have a product that I only choose to sell in Europe but you acquire the product in the United States, don't get mad at me for not providing you support when it breaks. Even Netflix is restricted on where the content it hosts can be distributed.

`
Morals and laws aside, anything that screws the MPAA, IP's, cable companies, et al, is OK in my book.

ttwtt78640 said:

That may be the theory but I doubt that is the actual practice. It would be stupid to put 10K antennae and 10K receivers in NYC rather than use a few antennae and a few receivers tuned to each of 50 (or so) desired NYC broadcast channels - the same 50 digital signals can then be streamed to (or recorded for) each of 10K users.

Click to expand...

So basically your argument is "they're lying" and that's why it's wrong?

So say that we take this giant leap that they're not lying about the very premise of their operations and actually do have 10k antennae in NYC, with individual customers leasing individual antennae and recievers. Would you then feel the same still?

ttwtt78640 said:

Assuming that they are in the advertiser's viewing area yes, but many ads are local and many Aereo users are not. If they were local then they could access these free broadcast signals w/o paying any Aereo fees at all.

Click to expand...

Aereo requires that a users billing address be within the viewing area that they're joining. And I believe was working towards, or may've already implimented, a method of determing location based on IP as well

So for instance, if you're wanting to lease an Aereo antennae picking up New York City channels you would need to be purchasing it from a location that would have access to New York City channels yourself.

This is why someone like me, in the suburbs of Washington DC, was unable to participate in Aereo's service as of yet because they had not established their Washington DC based setup yet.

So yes, aside from those conducting fraud, those aereo users that are viewing the local advertisers would be in the local region.

-edit-

Opps, I see that someone already addressed these with you.