A Simple Guide to the Aereo Supreme Court Case

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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One of the least publicized, but possibly one of the most important media industry copyright cases of the last decade goes to court next week. The Supreme Court decision not only will affect Aereo’s future, but also the possible futures of all rebroadcasting services.

Aereo’s argument is that it does not transmit to many people at once. It transmits to you, individually, from your antenna, through your cloud service, into your computer for your viewing only.
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That's like saying here is a water fountain that's free for public use, you know you are going to be thirsty but you aren't in the area at the time. So you pay a guy to go get a free glass of water and hold it for you till you have a chance to consume something that's 100% free

If this service get's shot down -- where is the limit? Would it be illegal for me to pay a homeless guy to stand in line for me so I can get my iPhone 9? Will I no longer be able to pay a lawyer to make an appearance on my behalf in a court?

No content is lost/edited -- the commercials are still reaching their intended targets (hence advertisers are getting their money's worth)

It sounds like the people against this are just wanting another hand out, and or double dipping. And the reason I say hand out is because if content creators/networks actually gave a damn about streaming or a service like this they would have rolled it out themselves, they were either too lazy, too stupid, or too cheap to jump on the idea. Obviously they want a slice of the pie now that they realize they screwed up but NOT giving the consumer what they want.

If they all of a sudden get their way and said service is shut down -- what would be the first thing to happen to online piracy of TV? And if that route is taken -- all advertisements will be stripped out, and it's even more lose/lose for everyone.

If they would just look at the other end of the spectrum -- think about it this way, a TV network's goal is to have as many people watching as they can get. Why? Because the more people watching the more people will see advertisements paid for by whoever. If "whoever" knows that you have a local viewership of 2 million people, and on top of that will be reaching 20 million people on top of that due to the re-streaming of (already free) tv. They would LOVE it, because their advertising dollars would be buying way more warm bodies behind a screen. Hence the price they are willing to pay goes up. Meaning more money in the pockets of these asshole's still living in 1990's.
 
Aereo costs $8, but the carriage fees the broadcast networks are charging cable companies is going to be something close to that with the expectation that the cost will continue to rise. If Aereo wins, broadcasters are going to lose out on a lot of money they are currently getting from the cable companies if they setup similar services. With billions of dollars at stake, I don't think they will.
 
collegeboy69us said:
That's like saying here is a water fountain that's free for public use, you know you are going to be thirsty but you aren't in the area at the time. So you pay a guy to go get a free glass of water and hold it for you till you have a chance to consume something that's 100% free

If this service get's shot down -- where is the limit? Would it be illegal for me to pay a homeless guy to stand in line for me so I can get my iPhone 9? Will I no longer be able to pay a lawyer to make an appearance on my behalf in a court?

No content is lost/edited -- the commercials are still reaching their intended targets (hence advertisers are getting their money's worth)

It sounds like the people against this are just wanting another hand out, and or double dipping. And the reason I say hand out is because if content creators/networks actually gave a damn about streaming or a service like this they would have rolled it out themselves, they were either too lazy, too stupid, or too cheap to jump on the idea. Obviously they want a slice of the pie now that they realize they screwed up but NOT giving the consumer what they want.

If they all of a sudden get their way and said service is shut down -- what would be the first thing to happen to online piracy of TV? And if that route is taken -- all advertisements will be stripped out, and it's even more lose/lose for everyone.

If they would just look at the other end of the spectrum -- think about it this way, a TV network's goal is to have as many people watching as they can get. Why? Because the more people watching the more people will see advertisements paid for by whoever. If "whoever" knows that you have a local viewership of 2 million people, and on top of that will be reaching 20 million people on top of that due to the re-streaming of (already free) tv. They would LOVE it, because their advertising dollars would be buying way more warm bodies behind a screen. Hence the price they are willing to pay goes up. Meaning more money in the pockets of these asshole's still living in 1990's.
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Well said. Except for one little problem that is at the root of all the CableCo's fears regarding this service. Cable cutting. This facilitates cable cutting like nothing else available on the market right now that I can think of. To the cable co's this is an incredibly disruptive service. They don't want to be just internet providers, they want to control the content, and thus the flow of cash around that content. They are afraid of ending up as just an ISP.
 
collegeboy69us said:
If this service get's shot down -- where is the limit? Would it be illegal for me to pay a homeless guy to stand in line for me so I can get my iPhone 9? Will I no longer be able to pay a lawyer to make an appearance on my behalf in a court?
Click to expand...

Oh lets hope so, then lobbying in this country might take a huge hit, as currently that's pretty much what corporations & lawyers do, they pay some undergrad or someone to stand in line for hours so they can be the first to throw money at someone.
 
Ooops should have finished. I do not mean to imply that disruptive services are illegal or should be, or that I think Aero has an illegal business model. Only that the cable co's are going to fight it tooth and nail, in whatever way they can, simply because a service like this will be disruptive to their current business model.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Oh lets hope so, then lobbying in this country might take a huge hit, as currently that's pretty much what corporations & lawyers do, they pay some undergrad or someone to stand in line for hours so they can be the first to throw money at someone.
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Lobbying is a different beast all together -- and I 100% agree, lobbying should be flat out illegal. Any money/time/perks should not be allowed to trade hands going to a person elected by the public and being paid with public money.

My examples were in the private world - where both parties with no outside influence on any political thing... would both benefit. I get my iphone 9, homeless guy gets money for booze. (extreme slightly comedic example)

If the cable companies are THAT worried about cord cutting - they should get at time machine and go back to 2008. That's when I cut the cord on any form of paid TV, because fuck em' I got tired of paying more and more each month for less and less.

Fact of the matter is they got too big, too lazy, and too greedy to think about ways to keep joe-six-pack paying money (and being happy to do it) Thankfully other companies came in and gave us exactly what we wanted for what we wanted to pay (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc) Cable companies could have had a HUGE slice of that pie had they been willing to loosen their grip on my wallet and offer up something innovative and nice.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Oh lets hope so, then lobbying in this country might take a huge hit, as currently that's pretty much what corporations & lawyers do, they pay some undergrad or someone to stand in line for hours so they can be the first to throw money at someone.
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I'm sure some inventive reality-lacking justices will find a way to shoot it down to let the cable cos be allowed to make money.
 
Don't know what the broadcasters are crying about. We're talking about free over-the-air content to begin with. Aereo is helping to extend the reception while getting more people to watch the commercials that ultimately benefit only the broadcasters. The real issue is broadcasters wanting to be control freaks.
 
GORANKAR said:
Ooops should have finished. I do not mean to imply that disruptive services are illegal or should be, or that I think Aero has an illegal business model. Only that the cable co's are going to fight it tooth and nail, in whatever way they can, simply because a service like this will be disruptive to their current business model.
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If Aereo was running physical wires from their antennas to customers, the broadcaster's complaints wouldn't have ever seen a courtroom.

The fact the analog signal is trans-coded to an internet stream creates enough 'confusion' to allow them a day in court.
 
jpm100 said:
If Aereo was running physical wires from their antennas to customers, the broadcaster's complaints wouldn't have ever seen a courtroom.

The fact the analog signal is trans-coded to an internet stream creates enough 'confusion' to allow them a day in court.
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yeah, and I suspect that the big money will win this regardless of the law.
 
In case any one cares here is the transcript of oral arguments

http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/13-461_o7jp.pdf

My favorite part was when Roberts got into why Aereo was engineered the way it was. Was it to just skirt copyright law?

CHIEFJUSTICEROBERTS: AllI'mtryingto
getat,andI'mnotsayingit'soutcomedeterminativeor
necessarilybad,I'mjustsayingyourtechnological
modelisbasedsolelyoncircumventinglegal
prohibitionsthatyoudon'twanttocomplywith,which
isfine. Imean,that'syouknow,lawyersdothat.

ButI'mjustwonderingwhy
(Laughter.)
 
GORANKAR said:
Ooops should have finished. I do not mean to imply that disruptive services are illegal or should be, or that I think Aero has an illegal business model. Only that the cable co's are going to fight it tooth and nail, in whatever way they can, simply because a service like this will be disruptive to their current business model.
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Not cable companies, broadcasters. Cable companies pay broadcasters like ABC money for the rights to retransmit. Aereo doesn't. That's why ABC filed suit, not comcast or cox.

there's a nice writeup here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...e-abc-v-aereo-case-matters-and-why-it-doesnt/
 
I'm torn about Aereo. I think the literal way they've set up their business, they are re-broadcasting content. Should it matter if they are using one antenna per 1000's of people (i.e., re-broadcasting to the 'public'), or 1000's of antennas, one for each person (where this all of a sudden makes it 'private)? I don't think that should matter in the slightest. On the other hand, I hate how the whole TV/content-delivery industry is set up, and it would be nice for a shake-up.
 
GORANKAR said:
Well said. Except for one little problem that is at the root of all the CableCo's fears regarding this service. Cable cutting. This facilitates cable cutting like nothing else available on the market right now that I can think of. To the cable co's this is an incredibly disruptive service. They don't want to be just internet providers, they want to control the content, and thus the flow of cash around that content. They are afraid of ending up as just an ISP.
Click to expand...

Market landscapes change. The good companies adapt, the bad ones resort to the equivalent of patent trolling by trotting out their legal departments for everything even remotely perceived as an infringement to them. This is the way of the business world.

As a hypothetical experiment, let us imagine that we are back in 1985. I ask my neighbor, who has better reception of the broadcast TV stations than I do, to record a show on VHS for me. This becomes a regular occurrence to the point where he decides to charge me a couple bucks for the service provided. At what point does this go from being a simple favor to being a criminal activity? Is it the initial recording of the broadcast or is it when he takes money for the recording of the broadcast? If he viewed it himself would that be a crime or is it only if I view a tape that he recorded that it is a crime?

The only winners in this system are the lawyers. The ones actively arguing these cases are making money and the ones in Congress that aren't doing anything to modernize the law to account for changing market dynamics are probably making even more. As usual, the consumer is left in that ill-defined gray area where the average person commits several felonies a day without even knowing it...
 
One thing that's getting left out of every damn story I've seen about this is this simple fact:

You have to live in the area where you'd receive the broadcast with your own physical antenna. You can't just sign up for the service anywhere, and watch TV stations from across the nation.

Now, yes, I know there are some technical ways you could get around this.
 
Skripka said:
I'm sure some inventive reality-lacking justices will find a way to shoot it down to let the cable cos be allowed to make money.
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You mean like Scalia, who asked why couldn't Aereo do this with HBO?

jpm100 said:
The Brits have always looked down on their former colony because "they do it right". LOL. As much truth as there may be in that article, they need to look at their own house.
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Attacking the presenter and not the facts is a logical fallacy, but if you want a domestic source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-17/princeton-study-confirms-us-oligarchy
 
Ruoh said:
One thing that's getting left out of every damn story I've seen about this is this simple fact:

You have to live in the area where you'd receive the broadcast with your own physical antenna. You can't just sign up for the service anywhere, and watch TV stations from across the nation.

Now, yes, I know there are some technical ways you could get around this.
Click to expand...

This, you're basically leasing a DVR - cloud like service from them IIRC.

Although that said, it makes me wonder why cable companies would have to pay re-broadcasting rights using the same arguments.
 
If you read through some of the related materials that are linked in previous replies, it paints a clearer picture of the situation from a legal standpoint. It boils down to the law requiring that either a broadcast network and cable company negotiate an equitable rate for the privilege of rebroadcasting the local network's content, or the broadcast network declaring their content "must carry", in which case the cable company has to comply, but the broadcast network cannot charge them for rebroadcasting said content. This makes it sound like all of the negotiations are voluntary and that it is sort of a gentleman's agreement between the broadcaster and the rebroadcaster.

Of course the argument can then also be made that the broadcast networks hold all of the power because they are the only ones that can voluntarily authorize the cable companies to rebroadcast their content. I believe it is exactly this aspect of the law that is open for debate with this particular case. Because the gentleman's agreement between the broadcaster and rebroadcaster is such that it still grants ultimate authority to the initial broadcaster, and Aereo's service operates outside the confines of this gentleman's agreement, the broadcast networks feel that their authority is in question.

Who enjoys it when their authority is questioned?
 
Here's an even simpler guide: ruling in favor of Aereo = good; ruling against Aereo = bad. The end.
 
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