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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]

#151

Post by bigtunacan »

IanDrake wrote: post #126
rayiner wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing "contorted" or "illogical" or "false-to-fact" about the copyright law in this case. The studios spend a lot of money to make this content. Users want to watch this content. To redistribute this content to users, you have to pay money to the people who created it. There is a narrow exception for free over the air TV. Aereo tried to shoehorn their internet streaming service, which is functionally no dif…

Hulu - watch any program any time. Aereo - watch what's over the air right now. Hulu - puts ads in the video Aereo - shows the ads that are over the air. Hulu - is like having everything on DVD Aereo - is like having a 50 mile extension cord on my digital antenna. I think the difference is striking.

The problem is Aereo is charging for this service that circumvents the system and pays nothing back to redistribute the content.

Contrast this with the lesser known, but competing service offered from Syncbak.

Syncbak does the same thing as Aereo, but rather than circumventing the existing networks and content providers; those are Syncbak's paying customer base.

http://www.syncbak.com/

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

#152

Post by dublinben »

mikeash wrote: post #57
djb_hackernews wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've not used Aero and haven't heard their argument but I bet their business model is they rent antennas to customers. I'd be curious to know where that argument failed because surely I could create a business that rented antennas to customers and installed them on houses. Why does it matter the location of the antenna? Either way this is bad for the consumer, bad for technology, and bad for innovation.

I imagine the argument fails because it's obvious to anyone who looks at the company's offerings for two seconds that the "rent antennas" thing is just an excuse, and that their actual business model is that they charge for streaming TV.

You could say the exact same thing about Cablevision and their 'cloud DVR', but they won their case before the Supreme Court. Aereo was relying on that decision to enable a similarly inefficient system (1 antenna and DVR per subscriber) for broadcast TV.

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

#153

Post by bmelton »

euroclydon wrote: post #137

I haven't given Aereo much thought, but it seems like, if I could rent a VPS in Miami, I could watch Miami Dolphins games online for the cost of Aereo plus the VPS. That would be like $30/mo for 5 months. $150 total -- much cheaper than the NFL Sunday Ticket. That alone is a big loophole!!!

I'm pretty sure they at least attempt to limit your antenna to one in a nearby area to you, though I'm not a customer, so I can't say how effectively they disallow it.

That said, I'm apparently in a suburb of Baltimore, and when I visit the aerio site, I only see access to Baltimore services... suggesting that I'd have a hard, if not impossible time getting an antenna in Miami.

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

#154

Post by marcosdumay »

defen wrote: post #128
PaulHoule wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you arguing that their current form was invented in America? Because the English crown had patents and copyrights before the USA existed.

In what concerns the rest of the world, it could as well be an all US invention.

The UK made nothing to spread it, the US made sure it's more universaly accepted than the Human Rights convention.

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

#155

Post by icebraining »

ironchef wrote: post #147
rayiner wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing "contorted" or "illogical" or "false-to-fact" about the copyright law in this case. The studios spend a lot of money to make this content. Users want to watch this content. To redistribute this content to users, you have to pay money to the people who created it. There is a narrow exception for free over the air TV. Aereo tried to shoehorn their internet streaming service, which is functionally no dif…

I think this is key "To redistribute this content to users". The redistribution is not that far from what's currently OK right now, though. Is it illegal (right now) for one to record (using an antenna) on to a TIVO and then to watch said recording over the internet for yourself? There is 1 antenna per user. There is 1 recording per user (Aereo is not recording a single instance of desperate housewives and then muxin…

The difference is obvious: when you're home recording, you're doing it for yourself, while Aereo is doing it for others. The fact that it's using 1 antenna/recording per user is an irrelevant technical detail.

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

#156

Post by TYPE_FASTER »

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…

From the link: "Any program which they can watch on their TV set, such as live prime time TV programs and sports events"

There are two reasons I paid for Aereo:

1. I cannot receive a digital TV signal over the air where I live. 2. I wanted just local channels, but did not want to pay another $30-50/mo for other channels that I'm not going to watch.

The Hauppauge product solves neither of these problems.

Relocating the receiver to a metropolitan area greatly increases the number of people who can watch the content, and ads, that are being broadcast.

As much as I do not agree with Justices Roberts or Scalia, I agree with their dissent in this case. This decision makes no sense from a legal (or technological) perspective.

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

#157

Post by drzaiusapelord »

danielweber wrote: post #79
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…

People who regularly watch the court know that judges falling into "Left" and "Right" camps are the exception, not the rule. There are typically splits were some of the "Left" judges agree for reason X and some disagree for reason Y, and/or some "Right" judges agree for reason Z and disagree for reason W. And that's a good thing. This isn't a sports game where I should root for "my team." The judges shouldn't start f…

The endless 5-4 decisions of late tend to contradict that. Most judges are predictable. Roberts and Breyer being an exception, and slightly less predictable.

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

#158

Post by toomuchtodo »

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…

Aereo should pivot to be a colocation company specifically for this equipment. Sell the device to the end user for $100, charge $8-12/month for "colocation".

What next? Illegal for a user to colocate their own antenna equipment?

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

#159

Post by gambiting »

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.

Sony was selling exactly this thing....9 years ago. They made LocationFree base stations which would stream your TV signal to your PSP anywhere in the world over the internet. That was incredibly impressive for 2005.

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

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

#160

Post by [deleted] »

dminor wrote: post #70
skottk wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Aereo wanted to define the activity by drawing a box around the tiny antenna and the user. The Supremes draw the box around Aereo and their customer base.

So if Aereo were just in the antenna rental business, and some other entity were in the cloud DVR business, and consumers paired them together it would be just fine? Edit: having read the decision, it seems there were companies that provided antenna services back in the 60's, and congress amended the copyright act to forbid them. The ability for Aereo subscribers to choose which material is transmitted is key to Aere…

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