Broadcasters Ask High Court to Shut Down Aereo TV

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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The big four networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox) are tired of taking on startup streaming service Aereo one court case at a time and have banded together to petition the US Supreme Court on the legality of Aereo’s service.

Aereo has argued that its service falls squarely within the law. The company’s technology uses remote antennas to receive over-the-air TV signals. Users can record shows to a digital video recorder in the cloud, and then watch them on devices including phones, tablets, and computers.
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Proof that broadcast companies aren't truly responding to market demand but rather knowingly raping customers over and over.
 
Unless there is something compelling that the lower court missed....I don't see the USSC overturning the previous decision.
 
Be nice SOTUS told those broadcasters to fuck off, that a lower court already said it's legal, and there's no reason to think otherwise.
 
Uh oh, it begins! This was predicted methinks.
 
Deathlizard said:
Remember Zediva? this is what happened to them.

Streaming Movie Service Zediva Pays Hollywood $1.8M, Shuts Down

My guess is that Aereo doesn't have much time left.
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Completely different. Aereo has already survived preliminary injunction rulings in Aereo's favor in both the First and Second Federal Circuit Courts. In the case of the Second Federal Circuit Court, the ruling was appealed by the broadcasters to the Second Appeals Court and was upheld.

In the case of Zediva, they lost the preliminary injunction hearing in the 9th Circuit Court and therefore did not have a revenue stream that enabled them to appeal to the 9th Circuit Appeals Court. Its actually a pretty good reason why prelim injunctions shouldn't be granted in cases like Zediva as it is effectively a way to starve a company to death, esp in areas of unsettled law.

Aereo has a better than even chance of prevailing at SCOTUS as well. And if they lose, it has pretty damaging implications for pretty much the whole entirety of cloud computing.

The other case of important is the Film On X case in the 9th Circuit in which the lower circuit court granted a preliminary injuction but Film On X appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and at least the general impression from the oral arguments were favorable to Film On X. Film On X uses a system almost if not exactly identical to Aereo. If SCOTUS actually accepts the case, it is likely that both DISH and CableVision if not other cable system/IPTV operators will submit briefs in support of Aereo since the key legal aspect that Aereo is founded upon is also the key to all the NDVR/NPVR/RS-DVR systems either in use or rolling out or planned. If would be hard for SCOTUS to kill Aereo without overturning the 2nd Circuit's Cablevision ruling which is what Aereo's system is based on.

In addition, there is actually a gotcha in this whole thing in that so far everyone has steered clear of the whole Betamax ruling as well as contributory infringement issues in all the legal work. The content people really don't want to bring in the Betamax ruling and related fair use issue for fear that it would open a whole can of worms they don't want to deal with. Likewise the tech side wrt contributory infringement. If it makes it to SCOTUS, its actually likely that both would come up, though the reality is it could be a lot worse for the content side wrt Betamax/fair use.
 
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