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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]

#101

Post by avmich »

brucehart wrote: post #92
selmnoo wrote: post #71

I've mentioned this before on HN, I'll say it again: Aereo should now do a pivot, becoming a hardware reseller of TV-signal-receiver/streamer devices like this one: http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_broadway.html - it can stream either over your local Wi-fi, or across the interwebs so you can watch remotely when you're out of the house. Broadband speeds are a bit slow, but they're getting there (slowly) - u…

Slingbox seems to have a strong position in this market. It's tougher to stream video from a person's home than from a data center. Most homes with broadband have limited upload speed that makes it difficult to stream good quality video. I'm hoping newer compression algorithms such as HEVC will make it possible to get decent quality even on connections with less than 1 Mbps upload bandwidth.

You probably don't need to sell the equipment with the idea that it will be installed in homes? Why not to keep person's equipment in data centers?

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

#102

Post by Grue3 »

Iftheshoefits wrote: post #64
Grue3 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure he's the one who "saved" Obamacare when it went to Supreme Court.

1. "Obamacare" is an implementation of the Heritage Foundation's[0] health plan from the early 90s. It's "liberal" in the same sense that any Republican can be said to be "liberal." 2. Roberts has a deep and wide judicially conservative record. He cannot be called "liberal" in the context of American politics; it's not even up for debate. The man and his judicial practice is as conservative as they come. 3. I really…

Doesn't change the fact that other conservative justices (Scalia, Thomas, and so on) voted against it and liberal justices voted for it. So Roberts could be said to be the most liberal of the bunch. The Aereo vote is pretty much the same as Obamacare vote, except Kennedy who is both anti-Obamacare and anti-Aereo.

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

#103

Post by danielweber »

emehrkay wrote: post #16
dynofuz wrote: post #4

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?

(It sucks you got downvoted for asking an earnest question.)

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

#105

Post by pontifier »

I'm constantly amazed by the way the supreme court carves a razor sharp line through the issues. They always seem to examine these complex issues with the clarity they deserve. That's their job, but these are some fantastic and intelligent individuals, and are the only people in government, especially the justice system, that I have complete confidence in.

I truly wish I could have more confidence in other parts of government, especially lower court judges, and the police.

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

#106

Post by bediger4000 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #72
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its amazing that the left and the right can't agree on anything, not even it being illegal to lie on gun applications, but once IP is tossed in the game they all fall on some pretty strong protectionist postions. I'm not making some big statement here, but it just goes to show that guys like Lawrence Lessig and the EFF keep losing because they have so few allies in government and have the most powerful enemies, the v…

Intellectual property law is the pride and joy of our legal system. Really. Patents, Copyright and Trademarks are all American inventions that have spread everywhere in the world. Many Americans think it goes too far, but in the fraternity of lawyers and judges, IP rules.

in the fraternity of lawyers and judges, IP rules

I believe that's the key insight. "Intellectual property" is good (in the sense of generating lots of work) for the legal profession. Judges tend to rule towards things that benefit the legal profession(s), and against things that don't benefit those profession(s).

However, you're wrong in point of fact. Copyright is an English law thing, a statute law, not a common law. Look up "Statute of Queen Anne". It's from 1710. Patents seem to be a British or Venetian thing. The USA almost didn't have a patent or copyright system, Thomas Jefferson was quite against them. For a long time, the USA allowed immigration on the basis of possessing some skill or patented idea - the USA was an "IP Outlaw". Not too surprisingly, this coincides with the USA's period of industrialization.

"Intellectual Property", the idea that one can own ideas, is just a bad idea, from an economic standpoint.

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

#107

Post by untog »

djb_hackernews wrote: post #98
untog wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't scaling horizontally at all. You scale horizontally to increase your capacity, installing one antenna for every user has zero to do with capacity and everything to do with legality.

I maintain that having a multiple of identical components in a system that perform the same duty is horizontal scaling. There are many reasons to scale horizontally, and I'd say increasing capacity is exactly what Aero would be interested in, not to mention fault tolerance. My career is based on building distributed fault tolerant systems, which is potentially why I think I understand their approach differently than…

Their approach was not to create a distributed fault tolerant system (but boy am I glad I'm talking to someone with such expertise with them) - it might have been a neat side effect of what they did, but it wasn't the reason for doing it.

They said themselves that the reason each user has an antenna is because it was what allowed them to legally operate. Their hardware setup was entirely based around a loophole in existing law. Ironically, it's awful horizontal scaling, too - if a single antenna breaks there is no backup, the user assigned to it loses their TV signal.

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

#109

Post by bediger4000 »

rayiner wrote: post #89
themgt wrote: post #43

The really interesting question is the implications for future precedent/innovations. The ruling says "But this difference [Aero's technological setup] means nothing to the subscriber. It means nothing to the broadcaster. We do not see how this single difference, invisible to subscriber and broadcaster alike, could transform a system that is for all practical purposes a traditional cable system into “a copy shop that…

I find the use of "innovation" here irritating. There's nothing "innovative" in 2014 about a service that streams TV over the internet. The only thing "innovative" about Aereo is its legal strategy of exploiting a loophole in the law.

"Exploiting a loophole in the law" - does that phrase really mean anything? Aereo did their system in a way that very carefully conformed to the law. The bizarre system that resulted is a reflection of the contorted, illogical, false-to-fact nature of copyright law, more than "exploiting a loophole".

The Supreme Court ruled wrong in this case.

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

#110

Post by Grue3 »

krapp wrote: post #77
nfoz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Describing Obamacare as liberal is a bit of a stretch. - a Canadian

Bear in mind, the U.S. definition of liberal is still far to the right of what the rest of the world considers liberal.

And by the whole world you mean Western Europe and a few other countries. US is very liberal compared to many other places (like my own country).
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