Today was Aereo day at the Supreme Court.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/abc-v-aereo-will-the-supreme-court-change-the-way-we-watch-tv/
In case you’re not familiar with it, the Aereo technology places a tiny TV antenna within a local TV market. Since that tiny antenna is technically receiving the TV signal “over the air”, the service is not subject to having to pay royalties to the local TV station – at least that’s their legal theory.
(I’m convinced I wrote about thus before, but can’t find it – maybe it was a poll or an email conversation)
With the signal captured by the antenna, users can view programming over the Internet or store it for later playback from “the cloud”
Another competing service like this is called Slingbox – that allows a cable subscriber to view cable TV remotely and control their satellite antenna and/or cable box from a remote device. The big difference is the person using sling box IS a cable TV subscriber or satellite subscriber and pays a subscription fee for the copyrighted content and the content aggregator pays the TV Station/Network.
Back in 2011, I was approached by the guy who used to run MP3.com. He has created a radio service of this type called Dar.FM. After questioning him about whether he has a good legal staff and money for a court battle, I looked over his product and decided I was not going to facilitate adding it to the directory or promoting the product.
His legal theory is based on the 2009 Cablevision ruling, that said that you – as a cable TV SUBSCRIBER – have the right to store copyrighted video content out in “the cloud” to play back on demand later. The essence is that “the cloud” is really just a modern version of a VCR / DVR.
Dar.FM is the equivalent, except for radio. What it offers is potentially very useful to a listener, but listeners don’t get to set the rules – the copyright owners do. Just because something is available over the Internet doesn’t mean it is not protected by copyright and subject to a terms of service which prohibits certain uses of the programming.
This service had three features about it that I found particularly troubling. First, the service allows you to record radio shows without the recording taking place on your PC over your Internet connection – recording is done directly between the streaming service and dar.FM’s servers. Secondly, once stored in your “storage locker”, you were allowed to share that content with a third-party who is not a subscriber to Dar.FM who could download the content into their mobile device. Thirdly, the app to play back content includes the capability to easily skip forward through commercials.
It may well be at the Supreme Court will say that this is entirely legal and proper – but I have no budget for legal fights. Should the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Aereo and by implication dar.FM, the business of running Radio will get much more difficult to sustain as an advertiser funded service. That probably explains why Clear Channel has gone so far down the iHeartRadio path – which he can protect much easier than “over the air” radio.
“This service had three features about it that I found particularly troubling”
All three are features of Cablevision’s product as well. The content providers fought that one as well but lost. The difference here is that in the Cablevision case, Cablevision is paying fees to the content providers whereas in the over-the-air case the content providers never pay for their grazing rights to use the public airwaves managed by the federal government – their free ride is why you cell phone bills are so high- the bureau of airwaves management (FCC) auctions off the spectrum to the phone companies.
Last time I checked, FCC licensees have an annual fee that is the primary source of funding for the FCC, which is not funded by the Federal Government, as it belongs to no Executive Branch Department. The sale of Spectrum has turned into a slush fund of sorts. A lot of the proceeds are earmarked to move local “public service” radios up to the 700 MHz band to eventually free up the lower frequency bands for different uses as the propagation characteristics are better for other things – but that will take a decade or two to complete.
They have to convert the radios in the military tanks they give to local police departments from the military frequencies to the swat team frequencies. 🙂
I love the way you play connect the dots.
It is a curse, like Cole Sear in “The Sixth Sense”, but instead of seeing dead people, everywhere I go, “I see tax waste”. 😉
“It’s not logical to me that you can make these millions of copies and essentially sell them to the public,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Mr. Frederick.”
Clouded judgement from the Connecticut judge. What if the copies are made by minorities that are more equal than others because of events in past generations? 😉
Good article and not behind their paywall http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304049904579517722557177420?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection&mg=reno64-wsj
Alito’s comments are not reassuring. He is framing his thought process on public policy implications, not interpretation of the relevant law.
I expect Aereo to lose. The fact that Congress has repeatedly extended copyright law to protect all 1939+ content shows how much clout big media has. ABC TV is still owned by Disney. The Constitution specifically states Coprigtgs as an enumerated power of the Federal Government – but for “limited times”. Limited Time is not 1 day less than eternity. The Founding Fathers probably never anticipated that “writings” by ” Authors” would morph into tradable assets held by corporations in perpetuity
I agree with you. Disney was also on the wrong side of the home recording for personal use debate as well.
Regarding the law’s sensibility, I always ask people whether it makes sense for the Congress to protect a cure for cancer/AIDS (or any other drug) for 12 years of exclusive use before generics…. but if someone instead writes a song or creates a video about it is protected in perpetuity…. remember, the whole point was to provide incentives.