Sign in / up

back to article US Supreme Court to hear media barons versus TV upstart Aereo tout suite

The US Supreme Court has moved with impressive speed to announce [PDF] it will hear a case brought against TV streaming biz Aereo by major broadcasters. The judges' verdict will either kill off the web upstart or leave the big networks having to reconsider their current business model. “We are gratified that the Supreme Court …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections
This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. P0l0nium

    It deserves to die....

    Given that 40 channels of UK broadcast TV conspired to show NOTHING worth watching over the 12 days of Christmas, the sooner its dead the better.

    Inform, Educate, Entertain ? Errrrr...... not so much.

    3 0
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    say wot ?

    "The challenges outlined in the broadcasters' filing make clear that they are using Aereo as a proxy to attack Cablevision itself and thus, undermine a critical foundation of the cloud computing and storage industry."

    Cablevision has nothing (or at best very little) to do with cloud computing.

    I hope their legal pleading is more on point that this otherwise it's going to be a very short case.

    2 1
    1. unitron
      Reply Icon

      Re: say wot ?

      I'd say it's more like they're attacking Aereo to defend cable companies from cord cutters.

      If you get your television over the air in the US, you don't have to pay the broadcast station anything.

      The way Aereo has it set up, if you get them to get your television over the air for you, you don't have to pay the broadcast station anything. In effect, you've subcontracted out your antenna-ing.

      But, because of the way cable does things, the broadcasters get to call it re-transmitting, and that means the cable companies have to pay them to carry them.

      Which is a pretty good deal for the broadcasters--the cable companies bring them extra viewers and pay them to be allowed to do it.

      (The broadcasters original idea would have been a law called "must-carry, must pay", where the cable companies had no leverage whatsoever.)

      What the broadcasters really want, of course, is for the slice of publicly owned spectrum they're licensed to use to actually belong to them, preferably for free because of squatters' rights or something, and for the public to have to pay them to receive what they broadcast over the public's airwaves--they just haven't been able to come up with the technology to make that work.

      Which icon is it you use for despicable rent seekers?

      3 0
      1. Turtle
        Reply Icon

        @unitron

        "Which icon is it you use for despicable rent seekers?"

        Smiley face.

        0 0
  3. asdf

    sigh

    About the last tradition this worthless SCOTUS has left to destroy now that the 4th Amendment is toast is that laws should not be made solely to prop up obsolete or broken business models. They probably would already have done so if Barry Diller and his money weren't talking so loudly.

    4 1
  4. Vociferous

    A conservative judge recused himself in a big corporate bucks case?!

    How about that. I doubt Aereo has that kind of clout or money, so what's the angle? The megachurches want to stream? The GOP wants to screw the lamestream media in general and Hollywood in particular? His family being held at gunpoint in a dimly lit cellar in Bogota? One thing's for sure: it's not because his conscience compelled him.

    6 3
    1. asdf
      Reply Icon

      Re: A conservative judge recused himself in a big corporate bucks case?!

      Lol and I thought I was cynical. Here have an upvote. Still its nice its not Sotomayor once again recusing herself due to having her fingers in virtually every major case of the last 10 years.

      2 0
  5. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    I suspect that the Aereo sea-of-paperclips antenna arrays are fake

    They're too small. They're too tightly packed. They're installed in electrically noisy data centers. There's no sign of on-board RF preamplifiers. There's little evidence of cables conveying the signal anywhere. They scream FAKE legal-loophole-supporting props.

    Maybe the paperclips used are even plastic. Glued to panels. Who knows?

    Free advice: trace the wiring.

    3 1
    1. Tom Chiverton 1
      Reply Icon

      Re: I suspect that the Aereo sea-of-paperclips antenna arrays are fake

      Maybe there is a single large amp and rebroadcast array pointed at them - after all I don't know many datacentre's that already pipe coax down from the roof.

      0 0
  6. P. Lee

    If any of this case was based on logic

    Aereo wouldn't need thousands of tiny antennas.

    What is needed is a sensible definition of "rebroadcast."

    3 0
This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like