A Nice Win For Content Creators
 

Supreme court rules TV streaming service Aereo illegal

The US supreme court has ruled that Aereo, the TV streaming service backed by media mogul Barry Diller, is illegal.

The justices accepted the argument of the major US broadcasters that Aereo's service amounts to a violation of copyright law.

More >

JUST SAW THAT ON gIZMODO

It has major implications IMO ...

Lets see if the suite of "Industry Lawyers" step up & use this case law to support content creators , performers etc for reasonable fee's.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Sad .. isn't it? :(

content creators? thats quite a loose use of the word, given small fish are not being broadcast on aereo.

what the ruling really protects are the big media companies like disney & news corp, who not only charge advertisers for adspace, they also charge the cable companies to carry their channels.

the TV industry is not competitive. its oligopoly. its so bad that cablevision recently won an OK to go forward with an anti-trust suit accusing viacom of uncompetitive practices by forcing cable companies to carry 14 shit shannels in order to carry 4 good channels.

its the shenanigans of the "content creators" that is the root cause of overpriced cable in the first place.

so this ruling is only protecting a corporate golden egg that fleeces the consumer.

:2 cents:

Always interesting to see how others view the world. I have the opposite opinion but I respect your right to have yours.

That said,

Big or small .. this represents prior case law from SCOTUS. So it does protect "content creators" of all sizes.

yes. all content creators are covered but in reality, who are the content creators that are actually effected? just ones who are big enough to broadcast a TV signal in a city. & the studios that create the TV shows that go over those broadcast signals.

the point of aereo was to give consumers more choice, & to disrupt the business model of studios charging carriage fees when the channel is concurrently broadcast for free.

SCOTUS handed a win to the forces holding back technological advancement, price gouging customers & doing everything they can to give consumers as few options as possible so they can charge monopoly prices to deliver ESPN to your home, whether you want ESPN or not.

if you can articulate what good this judgement does for consumers & small producers, im all ears.

:)

Small producers, as you said are covered in the ruling. It will be up to small/smaller producers to extract the benefits from the ruling.

Give a lawyer 5 minutes and he will figure out how to monetize this ruling. I am sure Barry won't take this lying down.
I am assuming you have a complete understanding as to how tv content is produced and paid for correct?

a concurring opinion to my own: http://www.businessinsider.com/a-dis...s-aereo-2014-6

:)

Not disagreeing with you. Just Aerero should have and probably did expect this ruling as they cut out the advertisers who pay for tv production. Aerero is not simply a remote vcr, its an editor that cuts out the funding sources. It is a loss for consumers but another system will have to be developed that all parties can live with.

At least it puts the forum and filelocker thieves who have developed the same system for their clientele, deeper into conflict with US courts anyway. Hopefully ones employing the system will be more easily dismantled.

The even bigger ruling was 9-0 that warrantless cellphone searches are illegal.

you're not alone.. i just think it's hard to fully understand the scope of the ruling, since language such as 'technology suppression', 'net neutrality' et al are being thrown around.

that is bizarrrrrre

Nice! Hate to see content thrown around with no regard for the makers.

its hard to think of a "disruptive" tech that is not going to infringe on some law in one way or another. sometimes innovation has to combat laws that protect the golden eggs created by big successful businesses. a good recent example is Teslas battles in several states over the way they sell their cars. Tesla has been breaking some state laws, & some legislatures are passing laws to harm tesla, such as in new jersey. oil companies are trying to protect an obsolete business model & they are using the law to help them. Big Media is simply doing the same thing with TV & its the consumer that suffers in the end from technological stagnation & non competitive prices & choices.

given that SCOTUS, just like obama, interprets laws in whatever fashion they see fit, it woulda been nice if SCOTUS had fought for innovation & for consumers. But the track record of the roberts court with respect to big business vs the consumers is quite a tilted one in favor of big business.

I doubt it will have any impact because the amount of content freely available will always surpass the amount of DMCA's sent, and each time content IS taken down, it's uploaded or renamed 100 other places.

Unless there's a massive hiring of content police and actual fines big enough for the big sites to really take a hit, then this won't do much to protect anything.

You think the broadcast is free even though companies paid millions of dollars for ads and
millions of dollars to produce the broadcast.

That's the part that some people just don't get; it's not free.

.

That's all true until the government decides to care.
Kim Dot Com got on the gov radar and he is kidding himself that he shouldn't plead out as soon as possible.
I think there is more to come and people will be shocked at what charges they face.

:2 cents:

You nailed it exactly. A lot of people like to think the Republican right are hillbillies and bible thumpers. The "Republican Right" has dinner with Roberts and moves things through congress and the courts to their liking. That truly is for certain. Dems do it too as much as they can. Both parties answer to the same share holders.

I too am really tired of laws being way behind the times. Its done for a reason and you touched upon it perfectly. "Old Boys Club." There is so much cool technology that is ready to hit the markets.

My wife likes to say just think of the technology we would have had Germany and Japan not been castrated after the war. We'd be living on the moon and beyond. Just speculation but I think planes would be better given the turbulent skies we have now.

I think you are very right. I can see where in the future DMCA's are almost at nil compared to now and now they are on the rise according to Google. Quantum technology threatens thieves in ways they do not want to imagine. End users will no longer be able to complain that "someone must have hopped my wi-fi".

Already anime makers are turning to game versions that require a log-in to function. You'll have to hack more than a log-in to get access by theft from companies in Japan.

It's pointless to go point / counterpoint with the "Disruptive Tech" cult. They believe they know better what a company / industry should be able to charge for it's product. And if that company / industry doesn't comply they develop a "disruptive" technology to steal what isn't theirs and call it innovation for the benefit of the consumer.

so is it OK with you that our government picks certain people & protects their copyrights (Big Media) but ignores the copyright issues of porn producers being hammered by piracy?

IMO this is not an issue of the basics of copyright, but rather about the technical details of the Big Media's business model of limiting the sources where consumers get their content, limiting their ability to pay only for the channels they want, & grossly overcharging for said service.

If the government was as helpful to small copyright holders as it is to the billionaire ones, i would likely have no problem with the ruling. But to me the ruling is only an assist to a limited number of entites that are hampering innovation in content delivery & price gouging their customers.

of course the consumer is slowly fighting back by turning to netflix hulu etc. but Big Media & telecom companies are MERGING, & they are in the process of "cable-izing" the broadband delivery of content with tired pricing & bandwidth overage charges. So everytime the consumer tries to cut their cable bill, Big Media/telecoms are fighting back & trying to prevent that happening & this ruling was a win for that cause.

:)

this ruling is more complicated than an issue of content theft by aereo. Its about the mechanics & functioning of a free market & the effect of oligipoly in free markets & the governments role in ensuring free markets.

if our government was as ambitious at shutting down tubes, file lockers et al as they were with shutting down aereo, i am on your side! but thats not the facts is it?

our government does not protect all the people; it protects whoever can pay lawyers to bring lawsuits. its part of the theme that life is unfair & tilted to the wealthy. i just get unhappy when the government helps the rich to the detriment of the consumer.

:2 cents:

final point & im gone...

edward snowden was a content thief. depending on your views of what the NSA was doing, one can think of him as a criminal by the letter of the law, or a hero for helping the public understand their government was secretly violating the publics right to freedom from unreasonable search.

aereo is a similar spot whereby yeah, you can say they broke the letter of a law. But what they were doing was a public good in response to harms imposed by Big Media on its consumers. To me Aereo was a hero & our government has failed the people.

or does this board think robin hood was a bad man. or how bout those law breaking founding fathers?

have a nice day.

So is it ok that you got a speeding ticket as I blew by you and the cop going 85 mph and didn't get a ticket?

I got away because the cop was busy with another crime......yours!

Your claim that the consumer is fighting back by turning to netflix and hulu is 180 degrees from the reality.

These companies pay the proper fees to do what they do.
You keep trying to make it legal for other people to NOT pay the fees.
The only thing illegal about these websites and services is that they refuse to pay the fees.

You think it's free because you watch it for free; but there is this thing called "Copy Rights" that allows a content creator to grant "Broadcasting Rights".
That ain't free.
That has to be paid by the broadcaster so they can show it to you for free.

I don't really get what's so hard to understand.
You pay for the content and then you can show it for free.

You and I may have differences but you seem like a decent guy.

The government wasn't ambitious about shutting down Aereo either.

The companies who had the most to lose were ambitious about shutting down Aereo.

They did what ADULT AS AN INDUSTRY SHOULD DO BUT WONT ....

They took it all the way to the Supreme Court and won.

That's our civil judicial system.. that's how it works.

AND ...

You keep brining up the consumer.

Why should a company be made to price THEIR product in such a way that you think is fair?

That's ridiculous IMO.

You charge $25 for 30 days ... Someone else charges $40 and another charges $14

Your site, you get to set the price.

said the guy with a site full of hijacked images in his sig :1orglaugh

i think mostly our difference lies in free market forces vs oligopolies. I would like to get ESPN & comedy central & science channel & nothing else. I have no ability as a consumer to pick what i want, like i can my food or my clothes, which are competitive markets. I have to buy 120 channels that are way too much money.

in general oligopolies are mature marketplaces where the winners won. They use their market power to stifle new competition. They also pay lobbyists to pass laws to prevent innovations, ask elon musk about that. also oligopolies thrive where the barrier to entry is very high. That makes it easy to corner an industry & once a monopoly owns an industry, they price gouge, deliver shit customer service & dont give a fuck about their workers.

I just described a cable company. :)

as i indicated in a recent post, i support the edward snowdens & rosa parks of the world that break laws which are harming people. given the way Big Media is using their copyright, i have no problem that aereo skipped out the carraige fees. those fees should be illegal anyway. Before cable, studios used to make their money on just the ads. that business model worked. Cable gave the studios a way to make more money, by charging cable companies to carry their popular channel. Now cable cos have to buy 14 channels to get 4 good ones from 1 studio. look how often channels get blacked out nowadays on cable networks due to the way Studios are jacking up carraige fees faster than health insurance companies. They are behaving like monopolists.

The big money for big media is the carraige fee. or else they would embraced aereo & increased their ad pricing due to the higher number of viewers they got with the new way of delivering content. But its most important to protect that golden egg, the carraige fee. & nobody can build a legal aereo because Big Media wont allow it. Thats why Apple TV (which was supposed to be a la carte pricing) never happened. Even Jobs could not stop the monopolists from their shenanigans.