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The Next Chapter

blog.aereo.com

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161–170 of 198 posts

Re: The Next Chapter

#161

Post by taude »

twelvedigits wrote: post #71

I don't think many people had the opportunity to use Aereo. They had a decent presence in New York City, and as the company expanded across the country reporters cited customer numbers in the mid five figures. As an Aereo user, let me tell you what you missed out on: one of the most amazing products I've ever used. Aereo "worked." It worked like magic. First, it lived up to its claim. You could stream live, broadcast…

I was a big fan. I live behind a hill, so getting the local terrestrial channels OTA is impossible. Aereo made this possible plus some great features like the DVR functionality for $8/month, with the ability to watch in my kitchen (on a laptop/tablet) was great because I live in an old building and running coax to all the rooms isn't really an option. We are a household with minimal live TV requirements. It was nice to watch the Olympics.

Unfortunately, we're back on Cable. Luckily there was a cheap package for 12 months to get us back on. I'll likely be cancelling at the end of the time, though.

Re: The Next Chapter

#162

Post by harryh »

kevincennis wrote: post #135
brianfitz wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having trouble understanding the ruling, so maybe those here with more knowledge can help. As a thought experiment, assume I live in a building that gets spotty OTA reception on my antenna. However, there is an apartment for rent on the top floor, and I decide to rent it for the sole purpose for storing property. If I set up an antenna in that apartment, but do not live in the space, and run a long cable from the…

SCOTUS never really addressed this. The majority opinion was basically just a bunch of vague hand-waving that amounted to "if it looks like a duck...". That was one of the most frustrating things for me when the decision came out. Obviously we all understood that we might lose, but to have a decision handed down that was so completely devoid of any sort of definitive logic or reasoning was really, really demoralizing…

Aereo argued that what they were actually doing in their datacenter mattered.

American Broadcasting Companies argued that the equipment you were running was irrelevant and what mattered was the service you were selling (streaming unlicensed TV over the internet).

I don't think the latter point is unreasonable. And I don't think your company thought it was unreasonable either (except when trying to win court cases). When trying to market your product to customers this is what your website said(1):

"Watch Real, Live TV on the Internet. Finally. With Aereo you can now watch live broadcast television online. No cable required."

The customer doesn't care about what's going on in your datacenter. Why should SCOTUS?

1. http://web.archive.org/web/20130302160437/https://aereo.com/

Re: The Next Chapter

#163

Post by twic »

dangrossman wrote: post #118
[deleted] wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Most people have a several-hundred-watt backup generator at home: their car. You can idle most cars for at least 2 hours per gallons of gas. That means with a 20 gallon tank, you have 40 hours of charging time for electronics. If you need to charge for an hour every six hours, for example, you'd have 10 days of phone usage. I've had uninterrupted internet through many multi-day power outages with just my car and a $2…

Most people in New York City have a car? A car for which they can obtain enough fuel to keep it running all day? News to me.

Re: The Next Chapter

#164

Post by baddox »

untog wrote: post #85
psychometry wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that OTA HDTV is...free, right? Explain to me how any content provider lost a single dollar because of Aereo's existence.

Because cable companies pay broadcast companies to redistribute broadcast content - it's a major source of income for the broadcast companies. The cable companies said that if Aereo were allowed to get away with what they were doing then they'd do the same thing themselves.

So a completely unrelated third party has a completely separate deal with content producers that has nothing to do with the legal free OTA broadcasts. Still doesn't add up.

Re: The Next Chapter

#165

Post by baddox »

pc86 wrote: post #66
venomsnake wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problems right now are the IP laws IMO. They are way too heavily skewed for the benefit of the creator and not society, which makes building any innovation a game of begging. And gives the creator power to kill said innovation. I would love shorter terms and some form of FRAND compulsory licensing.

The content I create does not belong to society. It belongs to me. If I want to kill it that is my right.

If you sell me physical media containing a copy of your content, or transmit to me a digital representation of a copy of your content, the copy does not belong to you or to society. It belongs to me. If you want to kill it, that is not your right.

Re: The Next Chapter

#166

Post by rhino369 »

kevincennis wrote: post #159
rhino369 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cable companies acquire a license to rebroadcast. That is how they operate. Aereo didn't have that. I think that is more than enough to distinguish Aereo from the cablevision law. But the Supreme Court doesn't haven't to follow Cablevision. That wasn't a SCOTUS case. And other circuits had conflicting rulings.

Cable companies have a license to retransmit live programming. That's a completely separate issue from time-shifted transmissions. Cablevision didn't have a license that allowed consumers to remotely record and play back shows. But the courts decided that the company didn't need a license, because it was the users rather than Cablevision who were performing in that instance, and thus it was considered a private perfo…

The Scotus opinion didn't really differentiate between live and time-shifted transmission. It found that Aereo didn't even have the right to transmit at all. The issue of time-shifting then became unimportant.

I'm not sure how SCOTUS would come out if it had seen Cablevision, but I think there is clear room for differentiation.

I think you can say that time-shifting is not rebroadcast without allowing Aereo. Aereo went a step further and said well we'll rent you an antenna. That's really the part that didn't fly with SCOTUS.

At least that is how I'd argue it.

Re: The Next Chapter

#167

Post by thedufer »

res0nat0r wrote: post #122
discardorama wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is antiquated about the idea that you don't get to use other peoples' valuable content without paying for it? Slingbox allows you to stream broadcast content without problems. Broadcasters are OK with that. So Aereo was basically renting out 1000s of little slingboxes; how's that a problem now?

Slingbox allows customers to privately rebroadcast content they have a license to view unlike Aereo which did not have that right.

No one is claiming Aereo has that right. They're claiming that the person renting the antenna does.

The implication of the case seems to be that renting an antenna does not give you those rights in the same way buying one does, which is bizarre and kind of hard to rationalize.

Re: The Next Chapter

#168

Post by thedufer »

rayiner wrote: post #106
jcampbell1 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I come down on the other side. The networks get the airwaves for free. It was a reasonable deal -- free bandwidth in exchange for a public service and an ad supported business model. If the networks want to give up their bandwidth and let the government auction it off, fine. I just don't like this crap that they get the spectrum for free, and I can't rent an antennae of my choosing. IMO, either we allow Aereo, or we…

You're precisely right: it was a deal.[1] The broadcasters get the airwaves for free, and the public gets TV over those airwaves for free. The deal said nothing about allowing people to capture content over those airwaves and broadcast it over the Internet. You can hardly blame companies for not wanting to give up more on their end of a deal than they agreed to give up! [1] I think it's a waste of valuable spectrum o…

"broadcast" is the wrong word here. The whole point of Aereo is that it was unicast, which is hard to rationalize as being different from running a wire.

Re: The Next Chapter

#169

Post by hawleyal »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #147
hawleyal wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want BBC iPlayer, ITV player, 40D, Fox Sports player, HBO player, Showtime player, Paramount player, Miramax player, Comedy Central player, AMC player, NBC player, Sony Pictures player, et al. It doesn't matter if they are web apps or other apps. They are separate, and because of this, shitty. Edit: Itunes for music was massively dominant because it has everything. Separate stores for every single music publi…

I take your point, I just don't think it's as shitty as you I guess. Obviously one, integrated solution would work best. But with music you only have half a dozen companies to deal with and you just have to sell their stuff. With TV you have hundreds of channels, different production companies, several revenue models, and huge variations in rights across the globe. Look at how long Apple has been supposedly working o…

There are thousands of record companies inside Itunes.

Re: The Next Chapter

#170

Post by res0nat0r »

thedufer wrote: post #167
res0nat0r wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slingbox allows customers to privately rebroadcast content they have a license to view unlike Aereo which did not have that right.

No one is claiming Aereo has that right. They're claiming that the person renting the antenna does. The implication of the case seems to be that renting an antenna does not give you those rights in the same way buying one does, which is bizarre and kind of hard to rationalize.

You can rent an antenna and do this privately to you and your household, you can't do this as a 3rd party company according to the law.
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