Justice Department sides with broadcasters in fight against Aereo

[Newsjock]

Source: Los Angeles Times

The Department of Justice is siding with broadcasters in their legal fight against Aereo, the start-up service that streams local television signals to consumers via the Internet.

In a brief filed at the Supreme Court on Monday afternoon, the department said Aereo is "clearly infringing" on the copyrights of the broadcasters whose content it is streaming without permission, and said a lower court ruling declaring the service legal should be reversed.

Launched in 2012 and available in 13 markets, Aereo plucks the signals of broadcasters and transmits them to the Internet via tiny antennae. Customers pay between $8 and $12 a month for Aereo, whose service includes a cloud-based digital video recorder that can hold up to 60 hours of content.

... Broadcasters have charged that Aereo, which is not compensating them for transmitting their signals, is in violation of copyright laws. Last year, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said Aereo's transmissions and recordings are not "public performances" of copyrighted material.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-justice-department-aereo-supreme-court-brief-20140303,0,7657039.story

[lostincalifornia]

1. They will have no problem with the comcast/Time warner merger, but allowing public airwave

broadcasts through the internet is different in what way?

It is a crock. If I can receive a signal over the air from a network broadcast that get compensated by advertisements, that should be fine if another medium is used to propagate that broadcast.

Screw the justice department. They have been mostly a disappointment, and I have no doubt they will screw the public on net neutrality also

[PSPS]

5. This is motivated by the blackout rule.

The only use for these (Slingbox is another example) that differs from being at home is that the broadcast material can be viewed outside the viewing area of the originating station. So a Seattle resident could watch a Seahawks home game when the billionaire's taxpayer-financed stadium wasn't sold out.

[lostincalifornia]

8. Aero could honor the blackout rules by blocking accordingly.

[PSPS]

11. I don't see how they could or that they would want to.

I know several people with this kind of setup and it's their primary reason for using it -- to watch a local game when it's blacked out via their other unit in a faraway place. And IP addressing isn't fine enough to distinguish a 75-mile radius.

[lostincalifornia]

12. There are a lot of communities where it is not easy to get local broadcasts without an expensive

Antenna. These folks are forced to either buy an expensive antenna, or pay 25 to 35 dollars a month for cable or satellite just to get locals

[thesquanderer]

13. Not like slingbox

Slingbox lets you get your local programming when you're away from home. AFAIK, Aereo only works when you are still within the original broadcast area.

[ElboRuum]

2. This seems odd and IANAL...

...and copyright law being what it is today, I'm sure I am wrong about this, but...

1. If broadcast air is available and legal to view by anyone with the equipment to do so, in the case of a television signal an antenna and a receiver unit (TV), then how does redirecting this freely available signal infringe on copyright, especially when the signal is bought and paid for by advertising dollars at the source of the transmission?

2. If the service is not adding value or monetizing the content stream itself, rather only providing what is essentially a lease on equipment for reception of the stream (signal and an online "DVR" service), again, how is copyright infringed on an otherwise free and freely available medium? In other words, since Aereo is not modifying the stream's content, nor do they source any, how can they infringe on a publicly available signal, especially if it is only being redirected through another medium and in real time of the original signal?

3. While a case could be made that providing the DVR service could be construed as having the potential for copyright infringement, the precedent for home recording not being an infringing activity has been settled since the days of VHS and Betamax.

4. Cable companies, in their original inception, were nothing more than an antenna on top of a hill or mountain with a coaxial cable run to the homes of people getting poor reception living in the valleys who paid for the service. Was this an infringement of copyright?

[mwooldri]

3. The DoJ is wrong on this one.

I view Aereo as somewhat similar to the Slingbox, in as much that both let you have a device in place A that receives audio-visual electronic content, encodes it for a format suitable for distributing it over the Internet in real time, and allows one in place B to receive that dedicated content stream. With Aereo it's basically a TV antenna with a very long cord... Slingbox is equivalent to an extremely long HDMI cable.

The 2nd Circuit has it right... they are not public performances of copyrighted material.

[RC]

4. The justice Dept is correct on this.

There are permissions to get, copyrights to honor. Ad rates based on coverage of the station. Aereo is profiting from someone elses business, without compensating them. Aereo is basically stealing someone else product and reselling it without permission.
My expertise is a total of 24 years with a broadcast company and a cable TV company.

[PSPS]

7. So, if there were no compensation (i.e., you could do this for free,) would there be a case?

I understand what you're saying. This device effectively increases the viewing area of a station, complete with commercials. If that could be measured, it could even be included in the Rate Card and, thus, compensate the broadcaster and copyright owner. Or the service could pay a fee to the original broadcaster the same way the cable operator does (or doesn't, in some cases like the God channels which give the re-broadcaster a "cut of the take" from the "tithings.&quot

[RC]

9. That's pretty much it.

When I was working for the cable TV, the cable had to carry the local TV channels without compensation either way. However there was a signed contract that had to be renewed periodically. Any non-local off-air TV stations carried (WGN for example), had to be compensated so many cents per subscriber. And yeah, most of the religious stations were either carried free or they paid to be carried.

[lostincalifornia]

10. So if I capture a public broadcast over public airwaves, record it , and lend the recording to a

Friend is that illegal, if I don't charge them?

If I buy a book, read it, then lend the book to a friend, is that illegal?

[PSPS]

6. Is it customary for the DOJ to take sides in a civil case?