Posted on 06/25/2014 7:21:23 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Supreme Court ruling on Aereo is out, and the court has ruled against the upstart company and in favor of TV broadcasters. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision that had ruled in favor of Aero, a service that lets you stream live network TV.
The court found that Aereo's service violated the copyrights of live network TV stations.
"This ruling appears sweeping and definitive, determining that Aereo is illegal," the lawyer Tom Goldstein wrote on SCOTUSBlog.
The case will have lasting implications for the way content is delivered online.
Aereo's technology uses special HD antennas that are about the size of a thumbnail to pull in broadcast TV from the airwaves. The signal is then transferred over the internet to your device.
Copyright law generally allows you to seek permission before broadcasting a public performance. In arguing that its service was legal, Aereo said the TV broadcasts counted as private performances because they were broadcast through individual antennas into people's homes.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Good look in the mirror for bad logic. With your logic why should cable companies pay to carry over the air content.. it’s free... and the cable company sells it to its subscribers. IMHO, your arguments are filled with fallacies.
“Again sticking with the rebroadcast presumption, its hard to make a case for monetary damages deriving from increasing the size of a broadcast audience, no matter its location.”
The problem for the nets isn’t increasing the size of the broadcast audience — the problem is Aereo is charging that bigger audience for the signal. And the networks are barred by law from doing the same thing.
The premise is the American people own the broadcast airwaves. And you need a license from the People to broadcast over their bandwidth. Broadcasters get exclusive use of a place on the bandwidth — but they can never, ever, EVER charge the American people to access that signal. If they try to charge for it, the FCC will yank their license.
What the nets are sore about is that Aereo is making money doing what they’re not allowed to do: charge for “over the airwaves” broadcasting.
Their “damages” are not getting a cut of the money Aereo is making. Their logic: if we can’t charge for sending something out over the airwaves, then nobody can.
This is a dumb decision by a court too old to have to bear the burden of their own decision.
Good example.
Concur, as I stated, but that is a matter of business practice, not the procedure of resending the signal.
But then there is the NFL, that does require you to pay them a fee for a broadcast game, if you allow more than a certain number of people to view it in one venue (doesn't matter if you charge or not).
The networks do charge for access to programming when they put it on the Internet, they just don't have to capture it from a broadcast.
Then when cable companies started in a good OTA coverage area..the cable company were required (must carry) to include the OTA in the area on the cable..but then still no charge to the cable company by the OTA
Its only with "retransmission consent" in the 1992 CATV Consumer Protection and Competition Act, that and OTA broadcaster could charge a cable company and so therefor block it by charging more then the cable company was willing to pay..
But oddely if the OTA did not charge the cable company then the cable must carry the OTA....odd... and the cable companies and consumers have been fight that for years paying for "free" OTA broadcast
But this is still individual broadcaster..if your an OTA broadcaster in the area, cable must carry you unless the OTA wants to charge for it..
So and OTA can not put a cable company out of business..
It can only ask for a fee for a cable company to carry.. so if the cable if it does not carry because the ota wants a fee..>p>Then the Cable and OTA are in competition for your viewing and business...
One cannot go into court and put the other out of business. .
So what happen to day is the equal of an OTA broadcaster making cable tv illegal technology in the US ..
vs
you just have to put in a notch filter to filter out my broadcast if i request it
Of course the networks charge consumers for cable/internet/satellite dish access. They license their programming to outside providers, or they themselves get into the (other than airwaves broadcast) transmission business, for which they charge a fee.
But that’s not my point. My point is the networks are not allowed to charge the American people for their BROADCAST signal. Aereo was charging for that, and that’s why the nets went to court.
You also see the irony of posting on this copyright thread from a Business Insider story reposted on Free Republic?... See LA Time vs Free Republic...
How does AEREO charging for the use of their antenna hardware and software (in order to capture the broadcast on a computer), differ from renting an antenna and digital TV from a company?
Because the Aereo antenna actually capturing the broadcast isn’t at your house — it’s at an Aereo data center.
And the flip side of American broadcast airwaves licensing (must be free to the public) is that no third party can charge to show the content of that broadcast either.
So the nets argued that Aereo was rebroadcasting the fruits of their free signal and charging for it.
You know how sports bars can’t (legally) charge people an entrance fee and show the big game on CBS? It’s because they’re charging a fee for what is by federal regulation supposed to be a free broadcast.
The nets convinced the Supremes that Aereo is doing the same thing as a sports bar.
Where is the “broad” in broadcast?
Nevermind, I see it now ... it isn’t your antenna in your house, it is broad or multicast retransmission. OK
The Court manages to reach the opposite conclusion only by disregarding widely accepted rules for service-provider liability and adopting in their place an improvised standard (”looks-like-cable-TV) that will sow confusion for years to come. - Scalia.
He nails it. I wouldn’t, as a matter of course, want to be on the winning side with Breyer or Ginsburg. Did you see Roberts over there in the majority?
What Roberts and Kennedy stand for is the status quo elites.
The elitist who nominated Roberts must have known what he was getting. It's a good thing the rank and file stood up to the Harriet Miers near disaster.
The idea that broadcasts are “free” to watch once they hit the airwaves is not exactly hard law. Look at all of the restrictions placed on NFL games. And the issue is not charging to watch them, but rather just showing them.
If I get too many friends together to watch an NFL game on a screen larger than 55”, all of a sudden its a copyright infringement.
bump
There have been attempts by Big Media to prohibit leaping past commercials on DVR devices.
Hell, they helped "kill" the new "vcr". I had once upon a time a DVR device with a built in tv schedule (free over air from TV Guide) and a DVD-R recorder (with great editing capabilities).
Panasonic took them off the market (at least in the US) and offers NO repair support for them.
Now you can either get a DVR device or a DVD recorder, but not in the same box.
Hollywood HATED losing the Sony Betamax decision.
“The idea that broadcasts are “free” to watch once they hit the airwaves is not exactly hard law.”
Yes, it is. It’s a hard and fast rule the FCC has never wavered on, even with the rise of cable and dish services that allowed others to charge for a signal, which had the networks tearing their hair out. “We want to charge for our broadcasts, too!”
Well, you can’t, networks. The FCC has never wavered on this: the networks are renters, who hold scarce and valuable broadcast licenses, at the pleasure of the American people. And the terms of the lease state that the networks can’t charge a fee to anyone who picks up their signal with an antenna and watches their programming.
In exchange for a monopoly on a frequency and the freedom to sell ads, the courts enforce prohibitions against exhibitors charging a fee to broadcast a network signal — hence the war on sports bars charging to show NFL games. The signal itself must remain “free.”
Aereo was charging a fee to capture and rebroadcast the signal. All of this was couched in “copyright violation” language, but that’s what happened.
It matters not to the NFL whether you charge or not. If your screen is too big you can't allow other people to watch it, and you can't have more than a few people watching a small screen.
I'm not saying you are wrong about the broadcast rules in general, I'm just pointing out that the NFL has a special drug deal going on.
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