Today was Aereo day at the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/abc-v-aereo-will-the-supreme-court-change-the-way-we-watch-tv\/<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 at least that’s their legal theory.<\/p>\n
(I’m convinced I wrote about thus before, but can’t find it – maybe it was a poll or an email conversation)<\/p>\n
With the signal captured by the antenna, users can view programming over the Internet or store it for later playback from “the cloud”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
It may well be at the Supreme Court will say that this is entirely legal and proper \u2013 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 \u2013 which he can protect much easier than “over the air” radio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 … Continue reading