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Supreme court: Aereo is violating copyright law [pdf]

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Re: Supreme court: Aereo is violating copyright law [pdf]

#301

Post by mikeash »

kd0amg wrote: post #284
vibrolax wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SC ruled that the number of antennas or where they're located is not the heart of the issue. Aereo effectively supplied a data stream with broadcast content to subscribers (just like a cable tv company) without licensing the right to supply that content. The issue is commercial rights, not technological means. If you personally lease space for an antenna, and engineer a means to get it to your TV to watch, that's…

Aereo effectively supplied a data stream with broadcast content to subscribers (just like a cable tv company) without licensing the right to supply that content. This is also what ESB would be doing by letting people rent antennas and streaming servers.

ESB would be renting antennas, and then what you do with them is your own business.

Aereo is selling streaming TV service that just happens to use antennas in the backend.

You might say, it's all the same in the end from a technical point of view. And you're right, but the law doesn't care about the technical point of view. From the legal point of view, Aereo is selling TV streaming, and must comply with laws for TV streaming.

Re: Supreme court: Aereo is violating copyright law [pdf]

#302

Post by alexqgb »

coldpie wrote: post #294
alexqgb wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the person you're paying is doing the work, then it's obviously not for their personal use. It's for yours. So they're doing it for money on someone else's behalf, which throws the "personal, non-commercial use" argument straight out the window. Moving on to Dropbox. Dropbox has no involvement in the selection of the file in question, or even the type of file, and moreover, they're not the ones to place it on thei…

> If the person you're paying is doing the work, then it's obviously not for their personal use. It's for yours. So they're doing it for money on someone else's behalf, which throws the "personal, non-commercial use" argument straight out the window. Boy is Geek Squad going to be in trouble when it's discovered how many TV installations they've assisted with are used for pirated material. > They can't claim ignorance…

Wait, do you not see the difference between a one-time transaction with a third party that installs equipment they neither own nor operate and that has nothing to do with content, and an ongoing service relationship with a company that both owns and operates equipment that has everything to do with content?

Are you fucking serious?

"I don't see how the law can make a distinction based on how I acquired the content in the first place, provided I have both of those rights."

In the case of Aero, you didn't acquire the content from the broadcaster. Aero did. And Aero is not authorized to redistribute the content legally. The law can distinguish between your paying them for content and you paying Apple as easily as it can distinguish between an iPhone bought from directly Apple and one bought from a mugger who stole it from someone on the subway.

Like you said, "I have the right to accept the OTA broadcast and to store, transmit, and view personal copies of the broadcast."

Sure, but what you do NOT have the right to do is set up a commercial operation that resells those "personal" copies to others, which is precisely what Aero was doing. So yes, you can set up your own antenna and run it yourself. What you cannot do is set up a business that sets up antennas and runs them for other people.

Re: Supreme court: Aereo is violating copyright law [pdf]

#303

Post by BrandonY »

harryh wrote: post #290
Dylan16807 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you draw a black box around an antenna salesman and the equipment they've installed, you also get something that appears to be a cable company.

I think there's a big different between paying money all at once to buy and install hardware that I own vs paying a recurring fee for a service.

Are you suggesting that it should be illegal to rent an antenna via a recurring fee?

Re: Supreme court: Aereo is violating copyright law [pdf]

#304

Post by exelius »

wooter wrote: post #256
skwirl wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the decision, you will see that you are absolutely allowed to do this. The length of the antenna or wire has nothing to do with anything. What is not allowed is public rebroadcasting (or what the law refers to as "performing"). The entire reason this law was written is because under an old law, cable companies ("community antenna television" in that day) were setting up antennas and running cable to multi…

Honestly, I don't see how you justified the decision and agree that it is "incredibly stupid." Am I not allowed to pay someone to set up my antenna? If I do should that involve other cable companies at all? "The entire reason this law was written is because under an old law, cable companies ("community antenna television" in that day) were setting up antennas and running cable to multiple homes, charging the users fo…

This is copyright. Copyright holders are allowed to assign reasonable restrictions on the content they broadcast publicly in order to monetize that content as they see fit. One of those restrictions is that the content broadcast over public airwaves may not be rebroadcast or retransmitted for non-private use. If your business model is encoding and retransmitting that content over the Internet, that's not private use. Considering the entire content industry's business model is based on controlling the distribution of the content that they own, there's no way this decision could have gone any other way. If you fundamentally disagree with the content industry's right to control distribution of content that they legally own (or at least control copyright to), then you are free not to consume any of it.

I have no pity for Aereo here. They based their business model on a legal technicality, and SCOTUS simply applied an updated technological interpretation to an old law. Their investors were big time media guys (Barry Diller was a founder of both Fox and USA networks) who knew the risks they were taking: it didn't pan out for them. Aereo is not a story of a plucky startup fighting the system; it's just one part of the system fighting another part of the system over who gets more money. Had Aereo won this decision, the real winners would have been Comcast, DirecTV, AT&T and Verizon.

Re: Supreme court: Aereo is violating copyright law [pdf]

#305

Post by MarkPNeyer »

alexqgb wrote: post #302
coldpie wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the person you're paying is doing the work, then it's obviously not for their personal use. It's for yours. So they're doing it for money on someone else's behalf, which throws the "personal, non-commercial use" argument straight out the window. Boy is Geek Squad going to be in trouble when it's discovered how many TV installations they've assisted with are used for pirated material. > They can't claim ignorance…

Wait, do you not see the difference between a one-time transaction with a third party that installs equipment they neither own nor operate and that has nothing to do with content, and an ongoing service relationship with a company that both owns and operates equipment that has everything to do with content? Are you fucking serious? "I don't see how the law can make a distinction based on how I acquired the content in…

> an ongoing service relationship with a company that both owns and operates equipment that has everything to do with content?

does this mean i can pay a third party to install an anetenna in new york, but i can't pay them maintain it for me?

Re: Supreme court: Aereo is violating copyright law [pdf]

#306

Post by coldpie »

alexqgb wrote: post #302
coldpie wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the person you're paying is doing the work, then it's obviously not for their personal use. It's for yours. So they're doing it for money on someone else's behalf, which throws the "personal, non-commercial use" argument straight out the window. Boy is Geek Squad going to be in trouble when it's discovered how many TV installations they've assisted with are used for pirated material. > They can't claim ignorance…

Wait, do you not see the difference between a one-time transaction with a third party that installs equipment they neither own nor operate and that has nothing to do with content, and an ongoing service relationship with a company that both owns and operates equipment that has everything to do with content? Are you fucking serious? "I don't see how the law can make a distinction based on how I acquired the content in…

> Wait, do you not see the difference between a one-time transaction with a third party that installs equipment they neither own nor operate and that has nothing to do with content, and an ongoing service relationship with a company that both owns and operates equipment that has everything to do with content?

> Are you fucking serious?

No need to be rude. Given that nothing illegal occurs throughout the entire process, no, I don't really see a difference between who provides the service.

> In the case of Aero, you didn't acquire the content from the broadcaster. Aero did. And Aero is not authorized to redistribute the content legally.

I see you aren't familiar with Cablevision. Yes, they are authorized to redistribute the content. Cablevision explicitly made remote DVR services legal.

> as easily as [the law] can distinguish between an iPhone bought from Apple and one bought from a mugger who stole it on the subway.

My, what a poor analogy! In that case the mugger had no legal right to acquire that phone. I, however, do have a legal right to acquire OTA broadcasts.

Re: Supreme court: Aereo is violating copyright law [pdf]

#307

Post by icebraining »

veritas20 wrote: post #268
icebraining wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aereo controls what gets recorded, TiVo (the company) doesn't. They're not selling an agnostic tool, they're selling the recording of a particular set of channels.

Not sure that this is true from a technical level, but from a customer level, I actually choose the shows to be recorded in a similar fashion that I would use TiVo. Aereo only records what you schedule to be record when it comes to their DVR portion of the service.

When I mean record, I mean capture and encode the signal. It doesn't have to be viewed asynchronously to be a recording.

Re: Supreme court: Aereo is violating copyright law [pdf]

#308

Post by kd0amg »

mikeash wrote: post #301
kd0amg wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aereo effectively supplied a data stream with broadcast content to subscribers (just like a cable tv company) without licensing the right to supply that content. This is also what ESB would be doing by letting people rent antennas and streaming servers.

ESB would be renting antennas, and then what you do with them is your own business. Aereo is selling streaming TV service that just happens to use antennas in the backend. You might say, it's all the same in the end from a technical point of view. And you're right, but the law doesn't care about the technical point of view. From the legal point of view, Aereo is selling TV streaming, and must comply with laws for TV…

Ok, so if Aereo didn't have "TV service" all over it's marketing literature, they'd probably be in the clear?

Re: Supreme court: Aereo is violating copyright law [pdf]

#309

Post by toomuchtodo »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #255
skwirl wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the decision, you will see that you are absolutely allowed to do this. The length of the antenna or wire has nothing to do with anything. What is not allowed is public rebroadcasting (or what the law refers to as "performing"). The entire reason this law was written is because under an old law, cable companies ("community antenna television" in that day) were setting up antennas and running cable to multi…

Aereo now sells me the antenna for $100. They charge me a "colocation" fee. Aereo is now following the law according to this decision. They still don't need to pay broadcasters. It was an incredibly stupid decision. I could offer the exact same service. I will point you to a ~$160 hardware device that I will colocate in a datacenter in Chicago for you for $15/month. I'll provide power, networking, and unlimited bandw…

Continued from my above post:

If you'd be interested in this sort of setup, I would be curious (my details in my profile). I'm already waist deep in several other projects, but I'd love to gauge the response. I already have datacenter space; I could be providing service to 80-100 people in two weeks with my current resources (i.e. Chicago-based datacenter space).

Not looking to compete with Aereo; definitely looking to disrupt protectionist copyright rulings.

Re: Supreme court: Aereo is violating copyright law [pdf]

#310

Post by dguaraglia »

What bothers me about this is how quickly decisions are made when it comes to content and copyright.

Average Joe doesn't give a flying f* about his privacy, the loss of life in war, the obscene spending on failed military projects, the lack of social programs, the millions stuck with ridiculous student debt...

But hey, touch their right to watch Netflix or some local station from NYC from their house in California and SHIT GETS REAL!

Tsk tsk...

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