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The court opinion talks in terms of user interaction with menus on the site to select shows. We're kidding ourselves if this works anything like "hardware rental". If it were, it would feel more like AWS.
The dissent (Scalia, Alido, and Thomas) believe that Aereo did not "perform" at all. They believe that when an Aereo subscriber logs in and clicks the play button, that the subscriber, not Aereo, is doing that performing.
EDIT: Please note that the dissent would not have necessarily ruled that Aereo's service was legal. The dissent merely believes that Aereo's service complies with this one specific part of the Copyright Act. From the dissent: "[Our] conclusion does not necessarily mean that Aereo's service complies with the Copyright Act. Quite the contrary. The Networks' complaint alleges that Aereo is directly and secondarily liable for infringing their public performance rights and also their reproduction rights."
So this decision is designed to be as tight as possible. The Court is trying to limit the effects of its decision by constraining it to this one claim by the networks. From the language of the dissent, I have a hunch that even if this one aspect of the case had been decided in Aereo's favor, that some other aspect would have resulted in its service being declared illegal.
Scalia: "I share the Court's evident feeling that what Aereo is doing (or enabling to be done) to the Networks' copyrighted programming ought not to be allowed."
Not surprised. The service works by rebroadcasting over the air signals and then charging for them, right?
Not surprised. The service works by rebroadcasting over the air signals and then charging for them, right?
Either way this is bad for the consumer, bad for technology, and bad for innovation.
Not surprised. The service works by rebroadcasting over the air signals and then charging for them, right?
I am eager to hear some expert commentary on the ruling on what the side effects will be.
This doesnt make sense. You are paying for renting the antenna. You're not paying for the content.
This is precisely why old people shouldn't be anywhere near tech.
This doesnt make sense. You are paying for renting the antenna. You're not paying for the content.
Congress at the time did not like how the courts were ruling in favor of the then fledgling CATV services. Courts ruled that capturing and sending the shows to cable viewers was not a violation as were not acting as "performers". Congress changed that they were, effectively stopping cable from providing local and regional channels. Well Congress showed who was truly doing this by adding in all sorts of new compulsory fees for carrying local channels. So CATV can and in some cases has to carry local content and pay for it.
TL;DR
Congress changes to Copyright in 1976 at the behest of broadcasters versus CableTV is the basis for the ruling. The original broadcaster owns all rights unless otherwise assigned.
The Supreme Court is wrong- the reason cable companies are treated as a 'public' performance of a work is that their distribution medium is shared- any subscriber can tune into that broadcasting of that work over a shared common carrier where one copy of the work is transmitted and many subscribers can view it. Aereo is different in that it only transmits the signal captured to a single subscriber at a time, removing…
This doesnt make sense. You are paying for renting the antenna. You're not paying for the content.
How exactly does Aereo work? You rent an antenna from them, they record the show for you, and you can play it back at a later time?