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0 pointsOldHand20186y ago0 comments

Aereo lost their case because they received a signal, decoded it, saved the video to a hard drive, and then streamed the video from the hard drive to the customer. Their business model clearly depended on them offering DVR capabilities to customers, deduping videos, etc. - why else save the videos to disk and then stream from disk?

If they simply streamed the undecoded TV signals to their customers, they would have been fine. The Supreme Court decision constantly compared the Aereo service to previously litigated cases involving "antenna on top of hill really far from house as a service" (deemed to be legal).

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ghaff6y ago· 2 in thread

I think I read the judgement at the time. I should re-read.

Though CDL would seem (IANAL) to be more analogous to the DVR in that it's transforming the original product in some manner rather than just boosting a signal.

ADDED: Would it actually be fine to stream an OTA channel? I don't actually know. I'm not sure it would be a business model for anyone but would that be considered a public performance?

csharptwdec196y ago

> Would it actually be fine to stream an OTA channel? I don't actually know. I'm not sure it would be a business model for anyone but would that be considered a public performance?

The answer is no, and that's why Aereo lost their case.

It is important to note that Aereo lost their case under a specific carve-out for broadcast transmission. Back in the 70s there were a few cases around CATV operators doing the exact same thing Aereo did. The end result was a series of regulations that made rebroadcasting in the fashion you describe an act that required licensing from the original broadcaster.

This is also why the Slingbox back in the day survived legal challenges (if there even were any.) The Customer had to have their own physical hardware at the location receiving the signals.

darkarmani6y ago

> This is also why the Slingbox back in the day survived legal challenges (if there even were any.) The Customer had to have their own physical hardware at the location receiving the signals.

So could areo sell the physical hardware to the customer and then buy it back at the end of the billing cycle?

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granzymes6y ago

> If they simply streamed the undecoded TV signals to their customers, they would have been fine. The Supreme Court decision constantly compared the Aereo service to previously litigated cases involving "antenna on top of hill really far from house as a service" (deemed to be legal).

Those cases were Fortnightly and Teleprompter and were overturned by Congress in 1976. If those cases were litigated again today the the CATV providers would have been shut down.

Spivak6y ago

> Aereo lost their case because they received a signal, decoded it, saved the video to a hard drive, and then streamed the video from the hard drive to the customer.

No they didn't! In fact the opinion specifically calls out that the technical details of how Aereo transmitted the work didn't matter one way or another.

> If they simply streamed the undecoded TV signals to their customers, they would have been fine.

It would not have. After the cable companies won their case about the antenna on a hill Congress amended the Copyright Act to make it illegal.

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