Supreme court: Aereo is violating copyright law [pdf]

If it's bundled with a service that streams over the air broadcasts via the internet to wherever you happen to be, then yes.

> By weighing the intentions of the company against the intentions of the law.

Putting aside how you're supposed to evaluate the intent of Congress or Aereo without evaluating exactly what it is they're doing, are you ready for the stupid consequences of that? It would mean someone doing the same thing with the same result would be legal if they had different intent. For example, someone could set up a service where customers can rent a VM in the cloud attached to a software radio[1] receiver that can receive any radio signals. Then "someone" (do you really care who when the outcome is the same?) publishes free software that allows you to use that to accomplish what Aereo does and more. The intent of the antenna provider no longer has any identifiable relationship to broadcast TV and yet people are still watching NBC without paying for cable. The same is true of the software provider, whose software has no reason to distinguish between a radio receiver in the cloud vs. in your home. Is that the result you were going for?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_radio

"No need to be rude."

Sorry, but I take offense at arguments that are stupid or dishonest. The Geek Squad analogy is not even remotely applicable since nothing owned or operated by the Geek Squad touches the content stream. Given that the content stream is the bone of contention, comparing them to Aero is - at best - stupid, and at worst, diversionary, which smacks of dishonestly.

And since we're on the subject, there was also an element of dishonesty in the way you tried to defend your Dropbox analogy. Initially, when you were wondering about what differentiates DB from Aero, you were talking about the companies. The explanation that one company qualified for the DMCA's Safe Harbor protections while the other didn't demolished your position. But you didn't concede - or even acknowledge - the point. Instead, you tried to continue the argument by quietly shifting the subject from the companies to the content, which is a separate matter entirely. This kind of rhetorical shell game is a weasel move, and is not something you see from people who argue in good faith.

And so you know, it was the pattern of dishonesty - and not a single incident - that raised my ire. If you can't support your point without resorting to bullshit, it's probably because the point you're trying to make is a bad one. Honest people stop there. Bullshitters press ahead, typically by employing the shell-game tactics you just used here.

For more on that subject, see Harry Frankfurt, who notes that liars - bad as they are - still respect the authority of the truth if only to do a better job manipulating it to their own ends. Bullshitters simply don't care. For this reason, they're a greater enemy of the truth than liars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit

Moving on, I am "familiar" with Cablevision. They're a cable company that does business with content providers. Consolidating remote DVRs under a single roof is not a problem for content providers as long as payments from Cablevision remain uninterrupted per the terms of the contracts that Cablevision signs. Indeed, if their remote DVR system increases paid and advertiser-auditable audience reach, it can work out well for everybody. Because of this positive business relationship, Cablevision is authorized to redistribute the content that Cablevision redistributes in the way that they redistribute it.

If Aero wants to redistribute content in a similar fashion, it needs its own contracts with providers. It can no more piggyback on Cablevision's contracts for content than you can park your car in a private spot reserved for - and paid for - a complete stranger.

That's the issue here. It's not about your right to pull down OTA content. It's about your desire to pay a third party to do that on your behalf. Specifically, it's about the right of that third-party to offer that service on a large-scale, commercial basis in the first place. This is what's known in terms of copyright law as "substantially infringing."

My main beef is I feel they're stretching pretty far to claim the transmission requested by an individual from a private antenna to that individual is actually to the public. The argument I'm objecting to is around Section 3, page 12-14 or so. The transmissions were each individually requested by each user, and chosen to watch at unique times and durations by each user. That, to me, is sufficient to mark each transmission as private. None of the transmissions are identical or sent to anyone who did not explicitly request them, unlike the CATV operators they continually draw comparisons to. There is no part of that process that I think can reasonably be called a public transmission.

Page 16 does address the Dropbox scenario, but I don't think it provides a clear line, which makes this a pretty crappy opinion, in my opinion. As they say on page 16, the cloud operators could try to slip through the holes in their definitions of "perform" and "the public", but I don't really see the distinction. I, the user, used my legal right to place copyrighted work on the remote service, and I chose to play it back some time later. That sentence applies both to Aereo and to Dropbox, and I think this decision would make the Dropbox scenario illegal.

In other words, copyright laws are not some clear set of rules derived from a clear set of ideas or principles. Rather, they are a bunch of vague nonsense that will be interpreted by government on a case-by-case basis, such anything that is opposed by major groups which represent content creators or distribution channels will be deemed illegal.