Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#11

Post by JoshTriplett » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 4:58 PM UTC

johrn wrote: post #3

So what if some company did something similar to Zediva, but with a model where customers "buy" the DVDs and then sell them back to the company when they are done streaming it? Basically use first sale to set up a streaming service where you don't need to deal with licensing issues. I pay $20/month for access to the servers and infrastructure. I get $10 of that to use as purchasing credit. Movies cost anywhere from $…

Seems like a nice hack, assuming nobody made an argument that it constituted "public performance" or something similarly crazy.

Plus, you get automatic coverage of damaged disks: the company will buy back undamaged disks for what you paid minus the rental fee, or for full price in the case of an all-you-can-watch service.

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#12

Post by JoshTriplett » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 5:00 PM UTC

noonespecial wrote: post #9

Storing a permanent copy rather than a buffer just large enough for streaming is a pessimization, not an optimization. And there's my word of the day. Can't wait to go pessimize me some software systems. Heh. Theses days, it's practically my job description.

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html

> Mel called the maximum time-delay locations the “most pessimum”.

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#13

Post by sushantsharma » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 5:07 PM UTC

I think this is an innovative solution and I wish aereo all the best. However, unless they can somehow include some more (premium) channels, it may be a little hard to sign up too many people. Currently available channels: https://aereo.com/channels

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#14

Post by TheAmazingIdiot » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 5:24 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #7

Meanwhile millions just illegally download the movies and tv shows of various sites, completely ignoring copyright law. And there isn't anything these people can do about it. But hey, lets do a lot more suits against companies and at least force them to do crazy things.

Technically, the letter of the law only highlights transmission (uploading) as illegal in most copyright issues. Downloading most any material seems completely legal.

That'd be neat to see: a bittorrent case which the user turned the upload to 0.0 . Are they infringing?

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#15

Post by ljf » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 5:27 PM UTC

TheAmazingIdiot wrote: post #14

tomjen3 wrote: post #7

Meanwhile millions just illegally download the movies and tv shows of various sites, completely ignoring copyright law. And there isn't anything these people can do about it. But hey, lets do a lot more suits against companies and at least force them to do crazy things.

Technically, the letter of the law only highlights transmission (uploading) as illegal in most copyright issues. Downloading most any material seems completely legal. That'd be neat to see: a bittorrent case which the user turned the upload to 0.0 . Are they infringing?

I think not. No-one has ever been sued for downloading material from Rapidshare etc - they have all be bit torrent users who have been sharing as they downloaded.

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#16

Post by e1ven » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 5:31 PM UTC

One of the problems with all of this is that location gets very tricksy. They say you need to be in NYC for Aereo to work.

The problem is, there's no good way to verify that.. Aero seems to be using HTML5 location, which can be bypassed by setting geo.wifi.uri in Firefox pretty trivially. (I know they ask for Safari, but you can also change user-agent)

Even if they used IP (which is a huge mess!), you could bounce through a proxy.

The problem is the internet does NOT have a reliably way to determine where someone is.

This goes all the way back to the Yahoo/France Nazi memorabilia issues back in 2000.

We have hints, and suggestions at where people are, but not hard and fast proof. For technical and social reasons, this is unlikely to change- So having laws based around restricting things to certain geographic areas is never going to be a long-term solution.

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#17

Post by narrator » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 5:32 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #11

johrn wrote: post #3

So what if some company did something similar to Zediva, but with a model where customers "buy" the DVDs and then sell them back to the company when they are done streaming it? Basically use first sale to set up a streaming service where you don't need to deal with licensing issues. I pay $20/month for access to the servers and infrastructure. I get $10 of that to use as purchasing credit. Movies cost anywhere from $…

Seems like a nice hack, assuming nobody made an argument that it constituted "public performance" or something similarly crazy. Plus, you get automatic coverage of damaged disks: the company will buy back undamaged disks for what you paid minus the rental fee, or for full price in the case of an all-you-can-watch service.

Except anything with a low/bid ask spread becomes money and that comes with its own set of problems. What would happen if the DVD was sold back for more than it was bought for? It's the intersection of Banking + Copyright + Tax Law. The trifecta of screwball legal areas.

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#18

Post by chime » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 5:37 PM UTC

gergles wrote: post #8

chime wrote: post #2

I hope Aereo continues to win. Another company doing the same thing is: http://www.skittertv.com/ - unfortunately neither of them support my local area. Due to my house's construction/location, I can't pick up DTV signals easily and would gladly pay $10-$15/mo to get those channels instead of the minimum $30/mo that my cable company charges for basic package.

You should call the cable company back and ask for the "lifeline" package, by that specific name. It only includes the local channels, but it exists in basically every franchise area and is generally $10 or less.

I did. I called three different times and not one of the sales people for Bright House Networks here in Florida knew about it. I said it is the lowest package with just the bare minimum channels like ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS and they said "No, the lowest plan we offer is $25+tax. There is nothing called lifeline."

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#19

Post by danielweber » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 5:48 PM UTC

johrn wrote: post #3

So what if some company did something similar to Zediva, but with a model where customers "buy" the DVDs and then sell them back to the company when they are done streaming it? Basically use first sale to set up a streaming service where you don't need to deal with licensing issues. I pay $20/month for access to the servers and infrastructure. I get $10 of that to use as purchasing credit. Movies cost anywhere from $…

Courts aren't stupid. Judges in particular get really annoyed if you think they'll fall for it. "I'll just do X' instead of X and then everything is legal!"

Re: Why Johnny can't stream: How video copyright went insane

#20

Post by ChuckMcM » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 5:51 PM UTC

This is a great in depth look at the dysfunctional way copyright has evolved. One of the more interesting things will be when we all have 'Google fiber' which is to say the majority of the Internet has really high speed connectivity and we can stream back from our houses to our devices. Today that is highly constrained by 'uplink' bandwidth but that will change. And when it does we'll get a full court press to make things like the SLingbox illegal.