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The Telecom Digest for June 30, 2014
Volume 33 : Issue 115 : "text" Format
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The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Aereo's service breaks the law (Neal McLain)

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Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 04:44:54 -0700 (PDT)
From: Neal McLain <nmclain.remove-this@and-this-too.annsgarden.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Aereo's service breaks the  law 
Message-ID: <5b3f825a-7da5-43e0-9776-4260e85f9012@googlegroups.com>

By Joan E. Solsman, CNET, June 25, 2014

The US Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Aereo, a 2-year-old 
startup that relies on tiny antennas to stream broadcast 
television over the Internet, is illegal.

In a 6-3 decision, the court concluded that Aereo, whose 
technology grabs over-the-air TV signals without the company 
paying broadcasters any fees, is effectively the same as the very 
first cable companies but with fancier technology.

"Behind-the-scenes technological differences do not distinguish 
Aereo's system from cable systems," Justice Stephen Breyer, 
writing for the majority, said in the 35-page ruling. "Congress 
would as much have intended to protect a copyright holder from 
the unlicensed activities of Aereo as from those of cable 
companies."

Aereo is thus publicly performing copyrighted works. And that 
means it owes money to the broadcasters, who had argued that the 
startup was stealing their programming. Cable and satellite 
companies pay billions in fees for the right to retransmit 
programming on broadcast television -- the most-watched channels 
in the country -- and some networks said they would have moved 
their shows onto paid cable channels from free over-the-air 
signals if Aereo had won.

[snip]

Aereo had argued that a decision against it could endanger
a copyright premise essential to the broader cloud-computing
industry: private versus public performance. The cloud-
computing industry built itself on the idea that streaming
services are abiding by copyright law so long as the streamed
work was originally obtained legally and is delivered at the
request of an individual to that individual in private.

Continued:

http://www.cnet.com/news/aereo-is-illegal-supreme-court-says-in-big-win-for-broadcasters/

-or-

http://tinyurl.com/nzn5b5t

"...so long as the streamed work was originally obtained 
legally..."

Well, wasn't that the whole point of the Broadcaster's lawsuit?  

Neal McLain






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