Back in January, we posted about a lawsuit brought by the four major US TV networks against Aereo. Aereo uses antennae to capture the local broadcast signals of the major networks, then places the recorded programs on-line.
Today, the Supreme Court ruled against Aereo. Looks like that’s the end of the line for this experiment. It also looks like a major loss for its investors, as the business model was based entirely on avoiding retransmission fees.
Here’s the decision.
As much scorn and criticism as J. Scalia draws (and admittedly, he does miss the mark on occasion), his dissent is well-worded and well thought out. But as usual, it’s wrong to blame the Supreme Court—it is Congress’ responsibility to clean up Copyright Laws and update our legal code in the face of emerging technology. It would be convenient if the Supreme Court could serve as a fire rod for progress, but that is not their charge.
The problem with Aereo seems to be that the company captures the signal and re-broadcasts it, they just need to re-work the plan so that the antennas and transmitters are in the possession of the end users.
There’s still paths forward: pay the re-transmission fees (probably retroactively at this point), come up with a novel co-op ownership of the single antenna type agreement or the each end user has their own antenna method.
Anyone expecting any other decision than this doesn’t understand how capitalism works.
I’m sure you feel smug in saying that. But you clearly have not studied history.
I agree, but I think this is one case where copyright law CLEARLY works and works well.
If you’re entire business model is to take OTA broadcasts of someone else’s content and shovel it over another medium, you’re acting like a cable provider and should be regulated as such.
Aereo was clearly in the wrong. I’m curious how much their infrastructure cost vs just getting the damn rebroadcast fees.
It was my understanding Aereo were saying they were just co-locating antennas. Perhaps the DVR services were the main issue, in which case Aereo should be able to rework that as a simple buffering method instead of full DVR, and perhaps that will get past the legal objections.
Whatever the case, I think this decision is a blow to anyone who wishes to put an antenna or even a box like a Slingbox somewhere other than the property on which they are viewing television and stream the signal somewhere else. As previously mentioned, it’s up to Congress to fix the laws, but the Court is generally part of the process that can speed the changes along. Lower courts may be there to apply the laws, but the Supreme Court has historically been an interpreter and often nullifies laws on several grounds.