• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

SCOTUS Ruling against Aereo TV

S

stationless listener

http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/77304/scotus-sides-with-tv-against-aereo

The justices said Wednesday by a 6-3 vote that Aereo Inc. is violating the broadcasters' copyrights by taking the signals for free. The ruling preserves the ability of the television networks to collect huge fees from cable and satellite systems that transmit their programming.

Aereo is available in New York, Boston and Atlanta among 11 metropolitan areas and uses thousands of dime-size antennas to capture television signals and transmit them to subscribers who pay as little as $8 a month for the service.

Some justices worried during arguments in April that a ruling for the broadcasters could also harm the burgeoning world of cloud computing, which gives users access to a vast online computer network that stores and processes information.

But Justice Stephen Breyer in his majority opinion that the court did not intend to call cloud computing into question.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
Click to expand...

It's interesting to see the breakdown of the justices' votes. Since it's not a political or legal board I'll not go any further on this.

Anyway, I don't see the end to this controversy. Someone else would come along and challenge the current TV arrangements and who knows if that effort succeeds or not.
 
I think it was the right decision. If Aereo wants to distribute the programming, they should get a license to do so. Not likely as affiliate agreements wouldn't allow this, but content creators have the right to set the terms by which their content will be distributed.

Anything else is really stealing.
 
I just think if Comcast had invented the Aereo model.....things may have turned out differently. The big guys want all THE POWER in their hands, not with some start up wannabe.
 
gregg75 said:
I just think if Comcast had invented the Aereo model.....things may have turned out differently. The big guys want all THE POWER in their hands, not with some start up wannabe.
Click to expand...

It's really all about the money. Subscriber fees for a cable channel can add up to far more than they make in advertising. If the cable channels have that second revenue stream, but TV stations don't, then it's hard for broadcast TV to compete for shows. The broadcast network would need to have twice the rating for the same show to be financially successful.
 
I think it's a shame because I agree had Comcast invented this the Supreme Court would have said, "It's fine." Our Supreme Court has a long, long, long history going back over 150 years of being biased and things certainly don't change fast, if ever.
 
TVCOOL said:
the cable companies are scared of Aereo.
Click to expand...

The cable companies weren't scared of Aereo. Cable companies were rooting for Aereo. If Aereo had won, it would have set a precedent that meant cable companies could find a way to avoid paying millions in retransmission/copyright fees to TV stations.

There was no real downside for cable companies. Sure, there are cord-cutters, but many cord-cutters are still using the cable company's broadband.
 
Supreme court is sometimes scary. They also struck down the Mass. free space outside abortion clinics law....yet the Supreme Court has the same thing outside their building.

Much similar to the state of Georgia passing a law to let folks carry hand guns, but they're not allowed in the capital building.

I guess laws were not meant to cover EVERYBODY, just a select few.
 
ansky212 said:
I wonder how many customers Aereo even had. My guess is not many, and this is just another media hyped story.
Click to expand...
You're right about the number of customers Aereo had. I think if they had won in the supreme court, they would have started a larger ad campaign to appeal to court cutters.

The real reason it was a story was its potential impact on local television. If cable companies were to have a legal way around paying retrans fees, you would see a big shift in the network-station relationship. It *could* have sent most good new shows to cable and severely weakened local broadcasters.
 
Aereo Files For Bankruptcy Protection

The streaming company says it filed a voluntary Chapter 11 reorganization at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in NYC due to “the uncertain regulatory and legal climate” following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June that Aereo must pay broadcasters to retransmit their free, over-the-air signals.

“Even with significant victories in the federal district courts in New York and Boston and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the reversal of the Second Circuit decision in June by the U.S. Supreme Court has proven difficult to overcome,” CEO Chet Kanojia says. “The U.S. Supreme Court decision effectively changed the laws that had governed Aereo’s technology, creating regulatory and legal uncertainty for the company. And while our team has focused its energies on exploring every path forward available to us, without that clarity, those challenges have limited our options.”
Click to expand...

http://deadline.com/2014/11/aereo-files-for-bankrpuptcy-protection-1201291546/
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom