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Aereo Suspends Service Over Weekend

Three days after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of broadcasters and declared that Aereo's live broadband TV service violates copyright, Aereo suspended service. In an e-mail sent to subscribers over the weekend, Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia stated that the company was suspending service as of Saturday night as they planned out their next steps. Aereo stated that users would be refunded their last paid month of service. The full e-mail to subscribers is embedded below.

quote:
A little over three years ago, our team embarked on a journey to improve the consumer television experience, using technology to create a smart, cloud-based television antenna consumers could use to access live over the air broadcast television.

On Wednesday, the United States Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision in favor of Aereo, dealing a massive setback to consumers.

As a result of that decision, our case has been returned to the lower Court. We have decided to pause our operations temporarily as we consult with the court and map out our next steps. You will be able to access your cloud-based antenna and DVR only until 11:30 a.m. ET today. All of our users will be refunded their last paid month. If you have questions about your account, please email support@aereo.com or tweet us @AereoSupport.

The spectrum that the broadcasters use to transmit over the air programming belongs to the American public and we believe you should have a right to access that live programming whether your antenna sits on the roof of your home, on top of your television or in the cloud.

On behalf of the entire team at Aereo, thank you for the outpouring of support. It has been staggering and we are so grateful for your emails, Tweets and Facebook posts. Keep your voices loud and sign up for updates at ProtectMyAntenna.org - our journey is far from done.

Yours truly,

Chet Kanojia

Founder & CEO
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Soup
@50.182.54.x

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Soup

Anon

Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

Aereo technology was an attempt to get around the law by a technical kludge that didn't fool anyone, including old fogies on the Supreme Court. So will they pay broadcasters to get up and running again? And if they do, what will they have to charge? Because it is a limited # of channels, it should still be a lot less tan cable charges.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
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Katy, TX

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r81984

Premium Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

Um....leasing an antenna, dvr, over the internet/long cord is legal.
You had a lower court agree with them and 3 of 9 justices agreed with them. If you read the dissenting opinion, they point out how wrong the 6 justices were that said aereo was illegal.
Also, the supreme court claims aereo must be a cable company because they think it looks like one. The decision is very twisted and political. Aereo's solution to get around the supreme court is to do the same thing, but to look less like a cable company and they will be legal again.

Technically, if you read the supreme court decision it does not ban leasing an antenna, dvr, and software over the internet.
Aereo or another company just has to find a way to do the same equipment leasing without looking like a cable company to people who are technology illiterate.

ITALIAN926
join:2003-08-16

ITALIAN926

Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

You and Aereo can continue to believe that Aereo is NOT RETRANSMITTING copyright when it takes an OTA broadcast and CONVERTS IT TO IP, it wont change reality.

and btw, the internet is NOT a "LONG CORD."

firephoto
Truth and reality matters
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join:2003-03-18
Brewster, WA

firephoto

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Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

said by ITALIAN926:

and btw, the internet is NOT a "LONG CORD."

Actually it is, or more precisely "a series of tubes". It is true that sometimes those "tubes" get virtualized (sorry big word) into a wireless form, but for all in tents and porpoises this is the same as cabled transmission because it's using open radio waves rather than ones contained in a tube (coax is literally a tube but it's filled with stuff like foam or air or aluminum or copper clad aluminum or copper clad steel or just copper).

By your interpretation of the SCOTUS interpretation my television equipment is illegal because it converts pushed mpeg data into IP data through a "LONG CORD".

r81984
Fair and Balanced
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join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984 to ITALIAN926

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to ITALIAN926
said by ITALIAN926:

You and Aereo can continue to believe that Aereo is NOT RETRANSMITTING copyright when it takes an OTA broadcast and CONVERTS IT TO IP, it wont change reality.

and btw, the internet is NOT a "LONG CORD."

Yes the internet is just a long cord. I guess you dont know how it works.

Also, if they want to clearly defined it as a non shared link they can just have customer VPN into the Aereo intranet. Then that takes away any argument you can make about the internet.

KrK
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KrK to ITALIAN926

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They aren't "re-transmitting" anything. They are receiving it and passing it straight to the single customer. Not broadcasting, streaming, or re-transmitting. It's functionally NO different then I receiving the signal on my own antenna and then encoding it myself and showing it around the TV's in my home. NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL. I'm not "retransmitting" it because I encode it then pass it over my IP network. Neither is Aereo. The Judges, as often are in these cases, technologically clueless.

Anonymous_
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127.0.0.1

Anonymous_ to ITALIAN926

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to ITALIAN926
said by ITALIAN926:

You and Aereo can continue to believe that Aereo is NOT RETRANSMITTING copyright when it takes an OTA broadcast and CONVERTS IT TO IP, it wont change reality.

and btw, the internet is NOT a "LONG CORD."

it uses a ATSC/QAM = MEPG2 T/S and yes it is IP tech. so yes you can as long as it's not modified i.e compressed to another format .

1 6MHz channel has about 20mbps bandwidth.

Soup
@50.182.54.x

Soup to r81984

Anon

to r81984
said by r81984:

Um....leasing an antenna, dvr, over the internet/long cord is legal.

Um... it was illegal by a 6-3 decision and the USSC won't take up this case again for at least 10 yrs. Aereo will have to pay until then, at least if they want to stay in business.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
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join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

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r81984

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Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

said by Soup :

said by r81984:

Um....leasing an antenna, dvr, over the internet/long cord is legal.

Um... it was illegal by a 6-3 decision and the USSC won't take up this case again for at least 10 yrs. Aereo will have to pay until then, at least if they want to stay in business.

Read the ruling. It does not actually make leasing an antenna, dvr, and software over the internet illegal.
The issue is the supreme court claimed that Aereo was doing more than just leasing equipment and was like a cable company (even though Aereo provides no content and does not retransmit, the customer just watches what they can pickup with their leased OTA antenna).

The ruling only applies to a company that "looks like a cable company". If you dont look like a cable company than the ruling does not apply.

maartena
Elmo
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maartena to r81984

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to r81984
said by r81984:

Um....leasing an antenna, dvr, over the internet/long cord is legal.
You had a lower court agree with them and 3 of 9 justices agreed with them. If you read the dissenting opinion, they point out how wrong the 6 justices were that said aereo was illegal.
Also, the supreme court claims aereo must be a cable company because they think it looks like one. The decision is very twisted and political. Aereo's solution to get around the supreme court is to do the same thing, but to look less like a cable company and they will be legal again.

Technically, if you read the supreme court decision it does not ban leasing an antenna, dvr, and software over the internet.
Aereo or another company just has to find a way to do the same equipment leasing without looking like a cable company to people who are technology illiterate.

No, they made the right choice. You can believe all you want that with all the loopholes they thought of with the "rent-a-tenna" idea that they are not re-transmitting a signal, but the bottom line is this:

A stream of local television stations arrives at homes mere seconds after it was broadcasted. The court decided rightly so that they are playing the same field as cable, satellite, iptv, and fios type services, but they were trying to get away without re-tranmission fees.

AEREO can still exist no problem. They just have to negotiate for re-tranmission, just like everyone else that brings local television to your livingroom. The "rent-a-tenna" scheme was a nice loophole, but it didn't fool the judges. It shouldn't fool you either.

It all comes down to this: AEREO was making money off of broadcast television, without paying re-transmission fees. If they start paying those fees, AEREO will be up and running again. Your monthly bill will probably double, but at least they are on the same playing field as other deliverers of television content to your living room.

Soup
@50.182.54.x

Soup

Anon

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

No, they made the right choice. You can believe all you want that with all the loopholes they thought of with the "rent-a-tenna" idea that they are not re-transmitting a signal, but the bottom line is this:

A stream of local television stations arrives at homes mere seconds after it was broadcasted. The court decided rightly so that they are playing the same field as cable, satellite, iptv, and fios type services, but they were trying to get away without re-tranmission fees.

AEREO can still exist no problem. They just have to negotiate for re-tranmission, just like everyone else that brings local television to your livingroom. The "rent-a-tenna" scheme was a nice loophole, but it didn't fool the judges. It shouldn't fool you either.

It all comes down to this: AEREO was making money off of broadcast television, without paying re-transmission fees. If they start paying those fees, AEREO will be up and running again. Your monthly bill will probably double, but at least they are on the same playing field as other deliverers of television content to your living room.

+1
Summarized nicely.
elefante72
join:2010-12-03
East Amherst, NY

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elefante72

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Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

Do you guys even know what retransmission is and WHY it was created? The idea with original retrans was that they would take the national feed and inject local advertising to monetize on a local level, and the must carry was there to INCREASE local competition, not SNUFF it out because a cable operator w/ sat feeds could easily bypass the local provider.

The local TV stations would CHANGE advertising and add special programming (news, talk shows, etc) which ot the local station could pick up a syndication or chose to broadcast their own material. That is MUCH different that the Aereo proposition.

Aereo was NOT modifying the stream whatsoever, so the decision was tenuous at best. Essentially they were dedicating a stream and presenting that stream to the end user--a lease. Now I can see where this is definitely a gray area and intersects w/ digital copyrights but the SC decided that the gray area would swing in favor of the copyright holders. That is consistent with their treatment in the past so not really a surprise.

As most of the TV stations in the US are now owned by conglomerates (what they were trying to prevent) the ENTIRE reason for it existing in the first place is not valid anymore.

They should let Aereo compete w/ national or regional feeds and of course that would LOWER cost (actualy competition), but at the same time potentially bring in non-regional broadcasts. The user of course would determine if that makes sense or not... Aereo cannot compete w/ the current monopoly must carry system, because they cannot control cost or demand as they are still negotiated in secret.

So this is a BEST case scenario for copyright holders, and what this means is that everyone's cable bill will continue to skyrocket. Not sure of why consumers would be HAPPY about this unless you work for the industry or own the stock

maartena
Elmo
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Orange, CA

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maartena

Premium Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

said by elefante72:

Do you guys even know what retransmission is and WHY it was created? The idea with original retrans was that they would take the national feed and inject local advertising to monetize on a local level, and the must carry was there to INCREASE local competition, not SNUFF it out because a cable operator w/ sat feeds could easily bypass the local provider.

Problem with your analogy is that most local broadcast stations gave up their "must carry" status with the FCC somewhere in the 90s, when they started charging cable companies for carriage. So "must carry" no longer applies, because with that they literary became like any other channel on your cable company's lineup, including taking the risk that they decided not to carry you anymore.

Nowadays, the local programming and local news are intertwined with the national programming, and a cable company can no longer carry the national feed anymore. Hell, a national feed doesn't even exist anymore like it did in the 70s, companies like DirecTV that don't pick up locals in certain markets, broadcast the NY and LA lineups to customers that are not in a market they have local presence in. (Which is less then 1% of their customers).

AEREO is pretty much the same as the local cable company, or the DirecTV local spot beams: They take the local signal, and distribute it accordingly. AEREO was smart on one thing: There are laws in place (or read: FCC rulings) that disallow the broadcasting of one state's stations into another state. E.g you can't broadcast NY's channels to LA cable customers, because the local NBC would be really pissed off they miss out on all the commercial income. DirecTV and Dish can only do that where there ARE no locals. So AEREO did not sell nationwide, e.g. in Los Angeles I could buy a New York channel package.

The game changed over the last 10-15 years. If AEREO had limited themselves to the few stations left that were still operating under the "must carry" rule, the broadcaster would not have a leg to stand on. But the broadcasters changed, and started charging.

If AEREO negotiates carriage, they can continue operating. But at a higher price.

P.S. the high cable prices are mostly driven by sports, not by the broadcast networks.
Zoder
join:2002-04-16
Miami, FL

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Zoder

Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

What you say is true, but I would agree with elefante72, that the change of local broadcasters switching from must-carry to retransmission consent was driven by massive media consolidation.

Congress really needs to go back and update the law. It's almost 25 years old and things have changed drastically from when they created must-carry and retransmission consent. The law that placed cable tv under the Public Performance Right clause of the Copyright Act and overturned Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television, Inc. is almost 40 years old.

Right now there is a major imbalance because the company that owns the broadcaster can withhold a whole slew of channels and they use that as blackmail to keep raising the rates.

Outside of a change to the retransmission law, I still feel a successful solution would be to allow the following exception to the antitrust laws. All of the distribution companies can collude and form a single representative for carriage negotiations. The content companies would then no longer be able to hold their channels hostage and play the distribution companies against each other during a contract fight. Right now they have the contracts expire at different times to gain that leverage. It would also level the playing field for the smaller distributors who would now have larger negotiating clout.

maartena
Elmo
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maartena

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Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

said by Zoder:

Congress really needs to go back and update the law.

In many other countries they have. In The Netherlands you can ONLY receive the public broadcaster (the equivalent of PBS) for free our of the air with an OTA antenna, the commercial stations (the equivalents of ABC, CBS, etc) are all encrypted, and you pay a monthly fee to receive them, and you get a little digital box to decrypt them.

In the UK they have solved it differently, you have to pay for a "Television License" which runs about 145 pounds (or roughly $200) a year, which then gives you the right to receive not only the public broadcaster (BBC) but also all the commercial broadcasters (Channel4, Channel5, all the ITV channels, and a bunch more) without encryption. Australia has a similar system, albeit less expensive I believe. This said, it is technically possible to receive the channels without paying for a TV license, but you would be breaking the law, and it is enforced in the UK.

The result of countries updating the laws on free OTA signals, has most often resulted in the commercial broadcast companies being allowed to encrypt their signals, and sell them accordingly.

The upside might be (as has happened in the Netherlands) that there are multiple companies that sprung up and started selling a completely over the air channel package, and are competing against each other in the market keeping the price at a low level. The downside may be that there is no free OTA, which may hit hard with lower incomes here in the US.

Right now in the U.S. (And Canada) we are in a pretty sweet situation, in that the airwaves are still free to receive television channels, as quite a few other countries have either started allowing commercial television stations to encrypt, or charge a yearly licensing fee to pay for the cost of the infrastructure. I'm afraid that if they start tempering with those laws and rules, it will shift to a more commercialized approach, where you may still receive local community stations, religious stations, and home shopping for free, but will have to rent a decryption box to decrypt the signals from ABC, NBC and the like.
Zoder
join:2002-04-16
Miami, FL

Zoder

Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

I'm not familiar with The Netherlands system so I'll have to read up on that.

In the UK, that license fee has been there since the beginning of TV and only goes to the BBC. They didn't have a US based system and changed things later on. They decided from the start that the BBC would air commercial free broadcasts and be funded by the viewers. We decided there would be multiple broadcasters competing and they would be funded by commercial sponsors. They then got a sweet kickback in the 90s giving them 2 revenue streams for their broadcasts.

I can guarantee you that the broadcasters would never agree to go to a British model. They would not give up their ad revenue and they would never be able to agree on how the pot would be split between all of the broadcasters in the country.

maartena
Elmo
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Orange, CA

maartena

Premium Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

said by Zoder:

I'm not familiar with The Netherlands system so I'll have to read up on that.

In the UK, that license fee has been there since the beginning of TV and only goes to the BBC. They didn't have a US based system and changed things later on. They decided from the start that the BBC would air commercial free broadcasts and be funded by the viewers. We decided there would be multiple broadcasters competing and they would be funded by commercial sponsors. They then got a sweet kickback in the 90s giving them 2 revenue streams for their broadcasts.

I can guarantee you that the broadcasters would never agree to go to a British model. They would not give up their ad revenue and they would never be able to agree on how the pot would be split between all of the broadcasters in the country.

No I don't think the British model is right either for the US because the BBC is such a different type of television and funded by the license fee. And you are right, ITV and Channel 4/5 are based on advertising and carriage transmission fees like in the U.S. They utilize the "freeview" system, which is similar to basic OTA in the U.S., but questions have arisen on whether that should not be commercialized as well, but it (of course) meets with resistance from the public.

All I am saying that if you do want to fight the law, it may not go in favor of the customer, but in favor of the broadcaster. It will all depend on how their bottom line will look like. If it will go down with whatever change is presented, they will fight it heavily.
Zoder
join:2002-04-16
Miami, FL

Zoder

Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

They certainly have the money to buy the laws they want.

That's why I think the antitrust angle would be a better route as it would pit 2 large lobbies against eachother.
devolved
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devolved to maartena

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to maartena
Right, which is why when contracts expire between television providers and television networks, the television network gets bumped off the provider's dial because the station isn't getting it's retrans fee. Forcing both sides into negotiations.

The TV stations always play the victim in these circumstances and they paint the cable or satellite provider is a giant corporation holding its customers hostage, when the TV station is the one setting the retrans fee because they're the ones wanting to get paid. The providers aren't making a dime off the retrans rule and the end user is always the one who gets soaked, no matter who is the villian in the contract negotiations.

Jim Kirk
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The troll circle-jerk mutual admiration society is out in force today I see.
Mr Matt
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said by maartena:

AEREO can still exist no problem. They just have to negotiate for re-tranmission, just like everyone else that brings local television to your livingroom.

Retransmission fees are a crock of S#*t, created by the government to satisfy the OTA broadcast industry whining in the early 90's. I am close to Seventy and can remember in the 50's when the hosts of the morning talk programs would take great pains to announce their programs were being broadcast by new TV stations or carried by a newly activated CATV systems. Station programmers used the CATV systems to deliver more eyeballs without asking the owners of the CATV systems to pay for the privilege of doing so.

Retransmission fees were cooked up by the government to allow local TV stations to recover advertising revenue lost when the value of OTA programming decreased when CATV systems began carrying programming delivered via satellite. CATV Subscribers now had a choice of programming delivered via Satellite, reducing the number of eyeballs watching the OTA programs.

maartena
Elmo
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maartena

Premium Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

said by Mr Matt:

Retransmission fees were cooked up by the government to allow local TV stations to recover advertising revenue lost when the value of OTA programming decreased when CATV systems began carrying programming delivered via satellite.

First, there is a difference between CATV (Central Antenna) which was a system of a big OTA antenna on a roof, and then transmitted through cables to a complex or HOA of some sorts. It's not the same as commercial cable and satellite, which started sprouting up in the late 70s and 80s with cable specific TV stations. (Think MTV, CNN, the pioneers of cable TV).

Second, it was not cooked up by the government, but by the broadcast companies. THEY wanted to charge for re-transmission. The FCC simply allowed it, with the requirement they give up their "must carry" status if they do. The government didn't cook anything up here, it was all commercial companies.
Mr Matt
join:2008-01-29
Eustis, FL

Mr Matt

Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

said by maartena:

First, there is a difference between CATV (Central Antenna) which was a system of a big OTA antenna on a roof, and then transmitted through cables to a complex or HOA of some sorts.

You at confusing a Master Antenna System which normally serves one building with a Community Antenna Television System which serves a city or town. Until CATV systems began carrying alternate programming via satellite the broadcasters loved CATV. I say again that the OTA stations weaseled the government into allowing them to charge retransmission fees to the CATV industry, unless the CATV system followed the must carry rules.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
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join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984 to maartena

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to maartena
said by maartena:

said by r81984:

Um....leasing an antenna, dvr, over the internet/long cord is legal.
You had a lower court agree with them and 3 of 9 justices agreed with them. If you read the dissenting opinion, they point out how wrong the 6 justices were that said aereo was illegal.
Also, the supreme court claims aereo must be a cable company because they think it looks like one. The decision is very twisted and political. Aereo's solution to get around the supreme court is to do the same thing, but to look less like a cable company and they will be legal again.

Technically, if you read the supreme court decision it does not ban leasing an antenna, dvr, and software over the internet.
Aereo or another company just has to find a way to do the same equipment leasing without looking like a cable company to people who are technology illiterate.

No, they made the right choice. You can believe all you want that with all the loopholes they thought of with the "rent-a-tenna" idea that they are not re-transmitting a signal, but the bottom line is this:

A stream of local television stations arrives at homes mere seconds after it was broadcasted. The court decided rightly so that they are playing the same field as cable, satellite, iptv, and fios type services, but they were trying to get away without re-tranmission fees.

AEREO can still exist no problem. They just have to negotiate for re-tranmission, just like everyone else that brings local television to your livingroom. The "rent-a-tenna" scheme was a nice loophole, but it didn't fool the judges. It shouldn't fool you either.

It all comes down to this: AEREO was making money off of broadcast television, without paying re-transmission fees. If they start paying those fees, AEREO will be up and running again. Your monthly bill will probably double, but at least they are on the same playing field as other deliverers of television content to your living room.

They made the wrong choice even according to the 3 justices that were not paid off.

The loophole is not what Aereo did by leasing equipment.
The loophole is how the supreme court things Aereo is a cable company so the cable company laws should apply to them.

How can Aereo negotiate retransmission fees when they dont retransmit anything???
Aereo leases an antenna to a customer. The customer picks up the transmission and watches it.

Aereo only makes money off leasing equipment. Aereo does not get any compensation for any OTA channel their customer picks up with the leased antenna.

ITALIAN926
join:2003-08-16

ITALIAN926

Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

Youre just in denial... Aereo is dead, this may help you out »www.recover-from-grief.c ··· ief.html

and No, its still not a CORD.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984

Premium Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

said by ITALIAN926:

Youre just in denial... Aereo is dead, this may help you out »www.recover-from-grief.c ··· ief.html

and No, its still not a CORD.

Aereo is dead because they look like a cable company according to the supreme court.

Anyone is still fully allowed to lease an antenna and dvr over the internet. They just cant look like a cable company doing it.
It sounds like you are in denial

ITALIAN926
join:2003-08-16

1 edit

ITALIAN926

Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

No, nobody can LEASE an antenna in this manner. If you have to PAY for the service, they look , and are, like a CABLE COMPANY.

At how many subscribers would you say is the cut-off? Shesh.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
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join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984

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Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

said by ITALIAN926:

No, nobody can LEASE an antenna in this manner. If you have to PAY for the service, they look , and are, like a CABLE COMPANY.

At how many subscribers would you say is the cut-off? Shesh.

The supreme court never said that. Go and read the ruling.
They only say that because Aereo looks like a cable company that they cant do that.
They dont say that leasing an antenna like Aereo does is illegal for a leasing company to do. They said it is only illegal for a cable company to do.
It is clearly stated in the ruling.

If you are not a cable company, but a leasing company then you can do it.

ITALIAN926
join:2003-08-16

ITALIAN926

Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

The ridiculous loophole has been closed, move along, nothing to see here.

maartena
Elmo
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join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena to r81984

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to r81984
said by r81984:

They made the wrong choice even according to the 3 justices that were not paid off.

The loophole is not what Aereo did by leasing equipment.
The loophole is how the supreme court things Aereo is a cable company so the cable company laws should apply to them.

How can Aereo negotiate retransmission fees when they dont retransmit anything???
Aereo leases an antenna to a customer. The customer picks up the transmission and watches it.

Aereo only makes money off leasing equipment. Aereo does not get any compensation for any OTA channel their customer picks up with the leased antenna.

You are simply dead wrong. They used the technology to make it LOOK like they are not re-transmitting anything, but the reality us that the live stream of a local station can be seen in a household just a few seconds later.

And THAT is why SCOTUS decided the way they did. It doesn't matter what kind of technology you have setup, and that you are leasing equipment or antennas to get around it..... But simply put, if all the technology you have put between the antenna, and the TV in the living room allows you to virtually live stream a TV station - and that it certainly does - it is considered re-transmission.

Simply put: If a customer pays a certain amount of money, and in exchange for that money they have the ability to watch live television on the internet, it really does not matter what technology sits in between to make it LOOK LIKE you are doing something else.... You need to pay re-transmission rights. Period.

AEREO puts companies that DO pay for those re-transmission rights at a disadvantage. If AEREO wants the ability to deliver live television to a livingroom, no matter HOW it is done, they need to play on same field as cable and satellite, and that is what SCOTUS has ruled.

Now, can AEREO still exist?

Sure they can. They can start paying for re-transmission rights, and launch again. They have the decks stacked against them with this ruling however, because the broadcast stations are not likely to deal with AEREO again.

The whole problem is that they are charging money for something they have no right to charge money for. They may hide behind a "rent-a-tenna" scheme, but in the end they charge money, and DO provide the ability to send a live stream of local broadcast station to people's living rooms.

Now, if AEREO was a completely FREE service, the ruling may have been different.

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

1 edit

r81984

Premium Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

said by maartena:

said by r81984:

They made the wrong choice even according to the 3 justices that were not paid off.

The loophole is not what Aereo did by leasing equipment.
The loophole is how the supreme court things Aereo is a cable company so the cable company laws should apply to them.

How can Aereo negotiate retransmission fees when they dont retransmit anything???
Aereo leases an antenna to a customer. The customer picks up the transmission and watches it.

Aereo only makes money off leasing equipment. Aereo does not get any compensation for any OTA channel their customer picks up with the leased antenna.

You are simply dead wrong. They used the technology to make it LOOK like they are not re-transmitting anything, but the reality us that the live stream of a local station can be seen in a household just a few seconds later.

And THAT is why SCOTUS decided the way they did. It doesn't matter what kind of technology you have setup, and that you are leasing equipment or antennas to get around it..... But simply put, if all the technology you have put between the antenna, and the TV in the living room allows you to virtually live stream a TV station - and that it certainly does - it is considered re-transmission.

Simply put: If a customer pays a certain amount of money, and in exchange for that money they have the ability to watch live television on the internet, it really does not matter what technology sits in between to make it LOOK LIKE you are doing something else.... You need to pay re-transmission rights. Period.

AEREO puts companies that DO pay for those re-transmission rights at a disadvantage. If AEREO wants the ability to deliver live television to a livingroom, no matter HOW it is done, they need to play on same field as cable and satellite, and that is what SCOTUS has ruled.

Now, can AEREO still exist?

Sure they can. They can start paying for re-transmission rights, and launch again. They have the decks stacked against them with this ruling however, because the broadcast stations are not likely to deal with AEREO again.

The whole problem is that they are charging money for something they have no right to charge money for. They may hide behind a "rent-a-tenna" scheme, but in the end they charge money, and DO provide the ability to send a live stream of local broadcast station to people's living rooms.

Now, if AEREO was a completely FREE service, the ruling may have been different.

Aereo does not retranmsmit anything. They also dont charge for any content that your antenna picks up.
They dont charge for OTA tv.

All aereo charges for is leasing an antenna, dvr, software, network equipment, and internet connection.

What you pick up with your leased antenna is not up to Aereo since they dont provide or retransmit anything.
You seem to be as confused as some of the supreme court justices of what Aereo does.
The 6 of the 9 supreme court justices said a cable company cannot lease an antenna and they felt that aereo looks like a cable company. 3 of the 9 said Aereo is not a cable company and leasing equipment is 100% legal.
So all aereo has to do is not look like a cable company and they can restart their leasing service. That would be complying with the ruling.

I would never buy aereo. I think the service is stupid as people can just buy their own antenna and use their own computer to stream TV anywhere. I dont see the point of leasing the equipment from Aereo.
But I will agree that 6 of the supreme court justices are technology illiterate and political and they made a completely wrong ruling.
Leasing an antenna is 100% legal no matter if it is in your room or across the internet. The law does not limit the length of your cord.

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena

Premium Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

said by r81984:

Aereo does not retranmsmit anything. They also dont charge for any content that your antenna picks up.
They dont charge for OTA tv.

All aereo charges for is leasing an antenna, dvr, software, network equipment, and internet connection.

You still don't seem to grasp the ruling.

A FREE signal is being broadcasted. Several seconds later, an AEREO customer is able to watch this very same signal, by PAYING AEREO money.

What happens in between the broadcasting of the signal, and the customer watching it on his computer/television, is really irrelevant. They can come up with all sorts of schemes and workaround to try and avoid paying the broadcasters, but at the end of the day, they do the exact same thing as a cable company: Offer the ability to bring a television feed into your living room. It really doesn't matter HOW it happens, the fact is that it DOES happen.

You just don't seem to understand this isn't about leasing antennas and DVR hardware, but about the shear fact that AEREO offers the ability to watch broascast TV live in your livingroom, for a charge of money. And THAT is why the SCOTUS deemed them to be on the same playing field as the cable or satellite companies.

ITALIAN926
join:2003-08-16

ITALIAN926

Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

quote:
All aereo charges for is leasing an antenna, dvr, software, network equipment, and internet connection.
uh hum, Aereo doesnt charge for anything............ because your entire argument is wrong.

KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium Member
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
Netgear WNDR3700v2
Zoom 5341J

KrK to maartena

Premium Member

to maartena
My old apartment building had a large Antenna on the roof and a wall outlet in each apartment that let the tenants use the antenna for OTA reception. Since we all paid rent, I guess he's also guilty of "illegal retransmission" and that antenna should be taken down pronto.

Sheogorath
@62.231.136.x

Sheogorath to maartena

Anon

to maartena
The court decided wrongly that they are playing the same field as cable, satellite, iptv, and fios type services, but they were trying to get away without re-tranmission fees.
FTFY. If I get TV on a PC in my home state and get the computer to send it over the Internet so an watch it across the country, that's legal. So why does it suddenly become retransmission when I pay Aereo to do that for me instead of me going to the effort?

WhyADuck
Premium Member
join:2003-03-05

WhyADuck to r81984

Premium Member

to r81984
This is the point in a nutshell. with this decision, the court has created a legal incongruity that can only be resolved by further court cases. There is no clear line between what is legal and what is illegal.

Here is why. Imagine the following situations:

Buying an antenna and putting it on your roof to receive free TV - LEGAL.

Buying an antenna and putting it on your neighbor's roof (with his permission) without paying him anything - probably legal?

You live behind a hill that block reception of TV signals. Your uphill neighbor own property all the way to the top of the hill and allows you to put an antenna on the peak to receive signals - probably legal?

Same situation as above except he charges you a monthly rental for the use of his property and the easement for your antenna cable - ?????

Same situation as above except the two of you put up one antenna and a splitter and share the signals - ?????

Same as above except that instead of your neighbor being next door, it's a friend or relative that lives at some distance away (maybe your mother or dad), but allows you to stream signals to your home over the internet, and doesn't charge you anything. In effect, a Slingbox or similar technology. LEGAL - for now, anyway.

But what if it's a friend and he feels like he needs you to pay something to cover the cost of the electricity your equipment will use? Legal?

Or maybe lt's a not-so-good friend or a distant cousin, who says that if he is going to let you put an antenna on his roof, he wants you to pay a flat $8 a month rental fee? Now we are looking a lot more like what Aereo was doing. But depending on what equipment you have at his home, a good chunk of that $8 may be doing no more than covering your fair share of his electric bill.

You can envision a lot of other scenarios in the area between the unquestionably legal antenna on your roof and what Aereo was doing, and the legality of all those situations are now clear as mud due to this stupid decision by the Supreme Court.

And then there is the question of whether in the back of their minds the reason they came down on Aereo was because it was a money-making corporation as opposed to a private arrangement between individuals. That would make sense BUT it would also conflict with their thinking in that wretched Citizens United decision, a.k.a. the decision that caused me to lose all respect for the Supreme Court.

Several people on various forums (maybe even this one, though if so I don't recall the thread) have suggested that what Aereo should do is sell the equipment they use to customers at stores like Best Buy or Walmart. In other words, you buy a small cube that contains one of Aereo's tiny antennas and the circuitry to support it, and it has a power jack and a network jack on the back, and if you want to and live within a mile or two of the transmitting towers you can put it in your attic and connect it to your local network and with the proper software, watch TV off of it, but if you want TV Guide data in the software you pay so much per month (similar to what Schedules Direct does, although I happen to think their rate is exorbitant). So Aereo makes a little money that way. But if you want to, you can ship or take your little cube device to an Aereo colocation center, where they will plug in your device (which remains your property) to power and the Internet for a small monthly fee. In effect you are only renting a small amount of shelf space, and paying for your power usage. Of course these colocation centers would be very close to the TV transmitters for a given locality, and just to be on the up and up they might also allow people to rent space for other types of servers (say Mac Minis to act as web servers or some such thing)

Server farms are a well established business and no court in its right mind would try to kill that, since it would put half the internet out of business. And changing for TV schedule data is a well-established business, a lot of people who use MythTV and similar software or PVR devices pay for schedule data (but they don't have to, but that's a whole other discussion). The courts would have a hard time killing that. And if a customer buys equipment that can receive TV signals and connect it to the Internet, well, that has been done before too. And PVR software is definitely legal as well.

I think Aereo could legitimately stay in business with three major modifications to their way of doing things. First, require the customer to purchase the equipment that actually receives the signals. No cable company does that. Second, require customers to pay for TV schedule data as a separate item, perhaps billed by an entirely separate company, and make it optional (if you don't buy it, you can still say "record channel 35 from 11:00 to 12:00"). No cable company does that, either. And finally, move the PVR functionality to a device in the customer's home. Think of something like a Simple TV, but with a remote antenna module that can be placed anywhere on the local network or on the Internet. You could say cable companies do that, since their power-sucking PVR box sits in the customer's home, but that's not something at all exclusive to cable or satellite boxes so you couldn't say that just doing that makes a company too similar to a cable company.

Actually I think the best combo would be something akin to a HDHomeRun Plus, which as I understand it has built-in trancoding/compression of received signals, but with a pair of Aereo's tiny antennas and the associated circuitry built in. That would be sent or taken to the colo center. Then in the same package, you get a device that's functionally equivalent to a SimpleTV box, except that it is paired with the aforementioned tuner/antenna device. You'd buy both of these together or separately, but you'd ship or take the tuner to the colo center and keep the other box (which would provide your tuner and PVR functionality) at home.

If Aereo sold this they could make their money from selling the equipment, offering the schedule service (or getting a commission if they partner with a schedule provider like Zap2It) which would go right to the user's at-home device, and in major cities, setting up colocation centers near transmitter towers (though admittedly, any company could do that, and it would probably be better for them if a lot of companies did - it makes a much harder target to hit). The thing is that by repackaging the service that way, they look NOTHING AT ALL like a cable company, and a lot like already well-established pieces of software and equipment that knowledgeable TV Viewers have been using for years.

I think the real key to this is that the end user has to outright own the equipment - the tiny antenna and associated tuner circuitry - and they have to be able to use it, even if only clumsily, totally independent of Aereo's services.

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena

Premium Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

said by WhyADuck:

Here is why. Imagine the following situations:

(Situations be here)

I'll make it easy on you:

If you are a commercially registered business, and you CHARGE people for a signal that can be received for FREE, then you should be paying retransmission rights.

If you put a slingbox at your cousins house because he has great antenna reception, and you slip him 5 bucks every so often to pay for the electricity costs, no one would ever find out. I'm of the opinion it is completely legal to do that. There are no commercial entities involved, there is no resale, no billing, no registered business.

You can come up with hundreds of examples, what about this, and how about if we do that, or what if we do it this way, is it still legal? In the end its a simple question: If money is exchanged hands from a person to a business to provide a signal, that business should pay the retransmission rights for that signal.
devolved
join:2012-07-11
Rapid City, SD
Ooma Telo

devolved to r81984

Member

to r81984
They could end it today by paying the same re-transmission fees every other provider pays the networks and their stations. That's what it boils down to.

Why should cable and satellite providers have to pay networks a re-trans fee while Aereo gets a pass?

r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium Member
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX

r81984

Premium Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

said by devolved:

They could end it today by paying the same re-transmission fees every other provider pays the networks and their stations. That's what it boils down to.

Why should cable and satellite providers have to pay networks a re-trans fee while Aereo gets a pass?

But they dont retransmit anything. That makes no sense.

They just need to change their image to not "look like a cable company". Then they can lease their antennas and dvrs again.
The supreme court never said it was illegal to do what Aereo was doing, they just said cable companies cant do what Aereo was doing.

Aereo just has to make it 100% clear they are not a cable company, but an equipment leasing company only.

givemeabreak
@74.115.237.x

givemeabreak to r81984

Anon

to r81984
Hmm. Then wonder why they never went after Magic Jack for fee's and such because lets be real, they DO look like a phone company. Now I'm waiting to see if anyone goes after Roku. I know, it's just a device but it did much more then the Aero device. I guess because Roku is an internet tool, that's the saving grace for them.

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena

Premium Member

Re: Will Aereo pay fees to get up and running again?

said by givemeabreak :

Hmm. Then wonder why they never went after Magic Jack for fee's and such because lets be real, they DO look like a phone company. Now I'm waiting to see if anyone goes after Roku. I know, it's just a device but it did much more then the Aero device. I guess because Roku is an internet tool, that's the saving grace for them.

Magic Jack: They are not taking anyone's phone signal for free, and reselling it. They BUY and PAY for the numbers they distribute, they BUY and PAY for the bandwidth they need, and CHARGE the users of the service accordingly. So does, for instance, Vonage. And BTW, VOIP providers have been charged, and not have to charge the regulatory fees for e.g. 911 service.

Roku: Roku does not take anyone's signal. It offers a variety of services that ALL have paid their proper dues to the companies that own the material they present. Many of the services you watch through Roku, require you to subscribe.

AEREO: Takes a FREE signal, and brings it to your livingroom without paying for retransmission. It does not matter HOW the signal gets from A to B, if you take a broadcast signal, and offer the capability (which with the rent-a-tenna scheme, they do) to watch that same signal seconds later inside a customer's home, they need to pay for re-transmission rights.

The people that say "why not go after this" or "why not go after that" need to look a little closer at the ruling.

For some reason people don't seem to get that AEREO took a free signal, and started charging money to record that signal and bring it to the livingrooms of their customers.

They may have been able to get away with it, if you could ONLY watch completed recordings, and not recordings in progress. Their technology allowed virtually live streaming of broadcast networks, and THAT is why they were ruled to play the same playing field as cable companies.

karlmarx
join:2006-09-18
Moscow, ID

3 recommendations

karlmarx to Soup

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You don't understand. This has NOTHING to do with the money. Let's be fair, a Neilsen family who uses Aereo would give the EXACT same results that they would if they used broadcast or cable. This has EVERYTHING to do with CONTROL. The fat cats are TERRIFIED they will lose control over their cash cow. It's loss of CONTROL over WHAT, WHEN, and WHERE you can watch TV that scares them. Their entire model is predicated on people watching TV, at home, at whatever time the show is on. Once you break that model, then advertising looses most of it's value. Again, this is about CONTROLLING what you watch, the money is just the icing on the cake.

••••••••••••••••

amarryat
Verizon FiOS
join:2005-05-02
Marshfield, MA

1 recommendation

amarryat to Soup

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to Soup
I think it's just the opposite. A bunch of old fogies couldn't see it for what it was. It was like paying your neighbor to put a roof antenna on his roof for you.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

jseymour
join:2009-12-11
Waterford, MI

jseymour to Soup

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to Soup
said by Soup :

Aereo technology was an attempt to get around the law by a technical kludge that didn't fool anyone, including old fogies on the Supreme Court. So will they pay broadcasters to get up and running again? And if they do, what will they have to charge? Because it is a limited # of channels, it should still be a lot less tan cable charges.

Won't matter to us. Broadcasters will receive not one red cent of our money.

Jim
ITGeeks
join:2014-04-20
Cleveland, OH

ITGeeks to Soup

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to Soup
They could house Slingboxes another company used to do the same thing, not sure if they're still in business though. But they would go as far as having cableTV and or D* installed in their data centers in each customers name to give the customer what they wanted.

mackey
Premium Member
join:2007-08-20

mackey to Soup

Premium Member

to Soup
said by Soup :

So will they pay broadcasters to get up and running again?

No, the broadcasters will refuse to license at any price. The broadcasters will never allow an OTT system unless it's part of an add-on to a traditional cable network.

/M

•••

IPPlanMan
Holy Cable Modem Batman
join:2000-09-20
Washington, DC

4 edits

IPPlanMan

Member

Over until Congress changes the law...

It's over for Aereo until congress amends the copyright law. With the amount of pushback/money/lobbying by the broadcasters (and related advocacy groups), this could be years alway.... If ever.

Rep. Goodlatte is Chair of the House Committee on the Judiciary. This office sets the agenda for copyright hearings/reform. Contact his office and voice your displeasure with the Aereo decision. Ask him to convene a hearing to address this. (Note, he's Co-chair of the Congressional Internet Caucus)

Here's the list of Members on the House IP/Internet Subcommittee.
»judiciary.house.gov/inde ··· internet

The Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet shall have jurisdiction over the following subject matters: Administration of U.S. Courts, Federal Rules of Evidence, Civil and Appellate Procedure, judicial ethics, copyright, patent, trademark law, information technology, other appropriate matters as referred to by the Chairman and relevant oversight.

Rep. Howard Coble, Chairman; Rep. Tom Marino, Vice-Chairman

Rep. Sensenbrenner
Rep. Smith (TX)
Rep. Chabot
Rep. Issa
Rep. Poe
Rep. Chaffetz
Rep. Farenthold
Rep. Holding
Rep. Collins
Rep. DeSantis
Rep. Smith (MO)

Rep. Nadler
Rep. Conyers
Rep. Chu
Rep. Deutch
Rep. Bass
Rep. Richmond
Rep. DelBene
Rep. Jeffries
Rep. Cicilline
Rep. Lofgren
Rep. Jackson Lee

Contact these offices and voice your displeasure with the Aereo shutdown. Ask these members to convene a hearing about it and get some momentum behind the process.

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

Aereo Retransmission Agreement

Here is my prediction of Aereo's future.

Cloud based DVR must prevent users from fast forwarding commercials. And Aereo must pay the same rates that cablecos/satellite providers pay.
ITGeeks
join:2014-04-20
Cleveland, OH

ITGeeks

Member

Re: Aereo Retransmission Agreement

And then you should do the same when using a Slingbox?
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

1 recommendation

tmc8080

Member

the next step..

Aero will shutter US operations and re-assemble outside the usa.. somehow still getting their USA feeds over encrypted networks. The Service change their name to something like OereA and keep charging for subscriptions.

Then, the USA gets zero revenue in taxes and other network operations services which would have been paid for and supported the US economy...

The streaming cat's been out of the bag since 10 megabit internet days.. it will take breaking the internet to cesor all the rogue streaming feeds and downloaded content. At which point, the value proposition becomes less of a proposition and not worth hundreds of millions in subscription fees paid to ISPs. Like it or not, the ISP industry lives or dies on the wide availability of copyrighted content getting to consumers for free or dirt cheap. Up until now, the big 3 ISPs have wanted to have their cake and eat it too... at some point, they might be forced to choose. The grand compromise, is of course reforming copyright and evolving the content distribution/business model. So far, no significant progress has been made on either that will benefit the consumer.

••••••

jseymour
join:2009-12-11
Waterford, MI

jseymour

Member

Didn't Get The Email, But...

Yup, it's dead.

As luck would have it, tho, shopping with my wife at Sam's and Costco, yesterday, I spotted Mohu Leaf and Winegard FlatWave Amped antennas. These are nearly-paper-thin antennas, about a foot square, you just stick up on a wall or window. They come with inline amplifiers and a power cube. (I believe they can be powered from a TV set's USB port, too.) After a quick web check, bought one of each and brought them home. The rooftop antenna hadn't been working well, but I figured: What the heck. If they don't work out I'll bring 'em back.

Left the TV programmed for the channels it'd found on the rooftop antenna.

First the FlatWave, as that was the one that rated slightly better. Much to my surprise it received every channel we wanted, save one. Moved it to an adjoining wall and then it got that, too.

Next: The Leaf. As one reviewer experienced: It did not fare as well, for me, on either wall. It received fewer channels, and many of those it did get suffered regular video and audio disruption.

So now the FlatWave is temporarily taped to a wall with masking tape. We'll evaluate it for a week and see if it continues to perform better than the rooftop antenna. We have storms predicted to roll through here, later today. That will be the acid test. With the rooftop antenna: Lots of wind, especially coupled with rain, was death to as many as four of the channels we most watched.

Next up: See if we can find a decent OTA DVR. There's a new thread about that, resulting from Aereo's demise, on Audio/Video Science forums.

A word of advice... well, three, actually: "Location. Location. Location." In the original location I tried the FlatWave, it did not get one of our most-watched stations--a station the rooftoop antenna received flawlessly. Moved it to an adjacent wall, about eight feet away, and it, too, received that station perfectly. But now one of the other stations was prone to breakup. This morning: Moved it back to the original wall, but right next to where it had been in the second location. Now all stations are good.

Jim

•••

a999
@68.4.110.x

1 recommendation

a999

Anon

out of business

To all those that think that Aereo will simply pay up, I don't think that you understand how delicate Aereo's business model really was. If they have to pay retrans fees, then they would have to pass those fees along and they no longer have a compelling product. Price would be too high. Might as well stick with cable.

Aereo was an attempt to shake up the status quo where cable providers were forced to pay for channel bundles containing channels most customers did not want. Had Aereo succeeded, that could been the leverage cable cos needed to be able to do the mythical a la carte scheme. The other thing would've been a real OTT IPTV system that isn't locked down to the geographical boundaries dictated by local governments franchise agreements with cable cos. Satellite attempts to disrupt that too, but high costs of satellite trans limits it greatly.

Aereo could've been a real force to be reckoned with, but now it's back to the status quo. Not sure why so many folks here are cheering that they get to keep their high cable bills.
devolved
join:2012-07-11
Rapid City, SD

devolved

Member

Re: out of business

The only way they can be successful in paying for retrans fees to the networks is forcing their customers to pay a higher subscription fee. It's no different with cable or satellite.
Zoder
join:2002-04-16
Miami, FL

1 edit

Zoder

Member

Fox taking ruling to the next level

Fox did not waste anytime trying to expand the ruling beyond Aereo. Their lawyers have already filed with the court that the ruling should be applied in their suit against Dish for their Hopper and Dish Anywhere services.

»arstechnica.com/tech-pol ··· service/

Fox's lawyer told the 9th circuit court of appeals
quote:
In Aereo, the Supreme Court held that Aereo's unauthorized retransmission of Fox's television programming over the Internet constitutes an unauthorized public performance of Fox's copyrighted works. Dish, which engages in virtually identical conduct when it streams Fox's programming to Dish subscribers over the Internet—albeit also in violation of an express contractual prohibition—has repeatedly raised the same defenses as Aereo which have now been rejected by the Supreme Court. Among other things, the Supreme Court rejected Aereo's argument... that it is merely an equipment provider and that Aereo's subscribers were the ones transmitting content over the Internet to themselves.
So Maartena, why won't they go after Sling Media directly next? Dish anywhere uses the slingbox technology.

•••••

jseymour
join:2009-12-11
Waterford, MI

jseymour

Member

Channel Master Gives Aereo Subscribers Free Antenna and DVR Discount

Aereo refugees, here ya go: Channel Master Gives Aereo Subscribers Free Antenna and DVR Discount

Jim
Mr Matt
join:2008-01-29
Eustis, FL

Mr Matt

Member

Retransmission fees forces CATV systems to pay something for nothing.

The local TV Stations and Networks loved the Community Antenna Television Systems until CATV systems began delivering programming via satellite. By the middle to late 80's networks and local stations were complaining to government to that they were losing advertising revenue because viewers now had a choice of programming other than theirs. The government in cooperation with the OTA broadcast industry, came up with a scheme to force CATV systems to pay to carry OTA programming to replace lost advertising revenue. Our corrupt government called the scheme retransmission fees.
frank124c
join:2003-12-04
Brooklyn, NY

frank124c

Member

Aereo

It seems to me that the supremes are now saying that it is illegal to rend dvd's. I love dvd's and I watch USTVNOW which is still available. And I still watch YouTube and use Bit Torrent. If I say what I really think of the supremes and congress and the president they would not publish my letter. But over the years I have downloaded thousands of movies from Bit Torrrent and from Kazaa before that. And I dare anyone to try to stop me! And I think all Aereo has to do if they want to stay in business is to set up a web site in Cuba or Costa Rica or some such country and transmit streaming videos and dare the pigs to stop them.