USSC Rules Against Aereo

[KD in CA]

Consumers lose a good option for avoiding cable companies.

 

 

http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/25/aereo-loses-in-supreme-court-deemed-illegal/

[DC Tom]

That's a tough decision. I can't say I disagree completely in this case...but it has very worrisome implications for any cloud services provider.

 

Not to mention that it oddly contradicts the earlier Cablevision decision in some areas.

[B-Man]

@BillClinton It is a sad day in these United States when the Supreme Court rules areolas are illegal.

 

 

 

Wait.........what ?

[GG]

That's a tough decision. I can't say I disagree completely in this case...but it has very worrisome implications for any cloud services provider.

 

Not to mention that it oddly contradicts the earlier Cablevision decision in some areas.

 

Exactly, and why I thought this was going to be a slam dunk case in the other direction. A very odd ruling, given the precedents already on the books - Cablevision network DVR, Betamax Fair Use.

[KD in CA]

It wasn't an easy case, but I'm disappointed they didn't take the opportunity to broaden the law while recognizing the impact of new technologies that present more options for the public.

 

Instead they made the default, restrictive decision that favors the status quo and the big money. Interesting (though not surprising) how the individual justices voted.

[GG]

It wasn't an easy case, but I'm disappointed they didn't take the opportunity to broaden the law while recognizing the impact of new technologies that present more options for the public.

 

Instead they made the default, restrictive decision that favors the status quo and the big money. Interesting (though not surprising) how the individual justices voted.

 

I think Aereo had the business model inverted. They should have a separate billing item for buying/leasing the antenna, then buying/leasing space in the data center for the stored content, which could be anything, and then wrap that around a DVR control. No way does the court rule the way it did, if that was the business proposition. (Pitch the idea to Barry)

[KD in CA]

I think Aereo had the business model inverted. They should have a separate billing item for buying/leasing the antenna, then buying/leasing space in the data center for the stored content, which could be anything, and then wrap that around a DVR control. No way does the court rule the way it did, if that was the business proposition. (Pitch the idea to Barry)

 

Next time I see him in the elevator!

 

 

Will be interesting to see Plan B. You know Diller isn't going away, this stuff is his fun time.

Edited June 26, 2014 by KD in CT

[DC Tom]

I think Aereo had the business model inverted. They should have a separate billing item for buying/leasing the antenna, then buying/leasing space in the data center for the stored content, which could be anything, and then wrap that around a DVR control. No way does the court rule the way it did, if that was the business proposition. (Pitch the idea to Barry)

 

You're probably right...but their business model is basically SaaS, and I can't really blame them for keeping it within those bounds and not having the foresight to realize that they'd be sued in a case that ultimately has the Supremes deciding contrary to precedent.

[B-Man]

Why The Supreme Court Ruled Against Aereo.

 

 

"It is not the role of this court to identify and plug loopholes."

 

"It is the role of good lawyers to identify and exploit them, and the role of Congress to eliminate them if it wishes."

 

Wrote Justice Scalia, dissenting in ABC v. Aereo, today's Supreme Court case finding a copyright violation in capturing broadcast signals with antennas and streaming the contents to paying subscribers (who are perfectly free to use their own antennas to capture broadcast signals).

 

 

 

 

 

 

I guess that I will put this here.

 

ANOTHER UNANIMOUS OPINION, this time striking down Obama’s recess appointments to the NLRB.

 

Everyone knows that Mr. Obama has not been following the law...............the S.C. verifies it.

 

.

[GG]

You're probably right...but their business model is basically SaaS, and I can't really blame them for keeping it within those bounds and not having the foresight to realize that they'd be sued in a case that ultimately has the Supremes deciding contrary to precedent.

 

If they didn't think they'd be sued immediately by the broadcasters, their head of strategy should be fired on the spot. This case is more about the marketing of the business model than about the technology. They pitched the product as a cut-the-cord alternative to cable, which put them in the cross-hairs of copyright violation by re-transmitting the networks without approval. If they had gone out with a pitch to host individual people's broadcast feeds, then it would have been a different outcome.

 

If they tweak the business model by sending each subscriber a small OTA antenna (while still keeping a backup one at the data center), have people download a TV/DVR guide with the optionality to store recorded programs on the cloud, then it would fully comply with precedent. But they didn't fully think through the marketing pitch.

[DC Tom]

If they didn't think they'd be sued immediately by the broadcasters, their head of strategy should be fired on the spot. This case is more about the marketing of the business model than about the technology. They pitched the product as a cut-the-cord alternative to cable, which put them in the cross-hairs of copyright violation by re-transmitting the networks without approval. If they had gone out with a pitch to host individual people's broadcast feeds, then it would have been a different outcome.

 

If they tweak the business model by sending each subscriber a small OTA antenna (while still keeping a backup one at the data center), have people download a TV/DVR guide with the optionality to store recorded programs on the cloud, then it would fully comply with precedent. But they didn't fully think through the marketing pitch.

 

It's as much about technology, because their marketing and business model was based on a pure cloud paradigm, not the hybrid you describe (not that that's unreasonable) and the thing that has and will continue to trip people (including the courts) up about cloud service providers is the question: who owns what? Usually, the split is that the service provider owns the equipment and software, the user owns the data...but not always, and there's often twists to it (Facebook, for example, can use your data for marketing and advertising purposes, in which context it's "their" data.) It's a huge issue with cloud services, and not one that will be adequately resolved any time soon.

 

In this case, Aereo very reasonably assumed that since they were following a traditional cloud pattern (renting out space, where the user owns the data), they were fine. The courts basically decided that, no, since Aereo is in possession of the physical storage, they're in possession of the data, therefore distributing the data equates to rebroadcast. (An analogy would be if you had a library of books I allowed you to store in my storage locker...you buy more books, ship them directly to my storage locker from the publisher, and can access your books any time, but pay me a monthly fee to use the storage. Then the courts come along and say that amounts to me selling you books in violation of copyright laws because I have physical possession of the books.)

 

Were they going to be sued? Of course. Did they have a reasonable expectation of winning said suit? Probably not...although they have (had) a reasonable business model that does not directly equate to rebroadcasting, they should have foreseen that not only has the law not caught up to the technology, but the existing analogies for their service (Amazon Kindle and the new Amazon Prime Music spring to mind most immediately) are all more akin to licensing and rebroadcast than they are true cloud services, and the courts would use that interpretation. If they didn't foresee that, their head of legal should be fired on the spot. But their business strategy was reasonably sound...just premature, arguably. I'd bet this decision is overturned within a decade, once the law catches up to reality.

[GG]

I agree with most of what you say, but I think the courts' interpretation was not that Aereo owned the content, but how that content was collected and distributed. They deemed that to have been done by Aereo on behalf of the customer, thus in violation of copyright. If Aereo flips around the content collection part, they should be in the clear.