Fluffeh writes:
"Although there are arguments scheduled for 22 April in the Supreme Court, US District Judge Dale Kimball of Utah ruled against Aereo which effectively bans it in Utah along with the rest of the 10th Circuit, which includes Wyoming, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Colorado.
Kimball ruled that Aereo's retransmission of Plaintiffs' copyrighted programs "is indistinguishable from a cable company and falls squarely within the language of the Transmit Clause." He didn't buy Aereo's argument that its system of renting a tiny antenna to each customer allows it to avoid the "Transmit Clause" of the 1976 Copyright Act, which determines what kind of "transmissions" of copyrighted material must pay licensing fees."
(Score: 1) by nightsky30 on Friday February 21 2014, @01:03PM
Agreed. I've not looked at what channels they have, but if they are simply capturing OTA broadcasts, that doesn't sound much like a cable company to me. Seems like a cloud based DVR service with a live streaming option once you buy their antenna product.
Anyone could build a DVR using a tuner card, Linux, and MythTV with cable or a digital antenna. Hell, with that setup you could burn your DVR'ed stuff to DVD/Blu-ray. You could even write or find an app/plugin to remotely handle MythTV from your phone. The only thing they've done is add a cloud storage element, but you could do that too.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by monster on Friday February 21 2014, @02:13PM
IP law is schizophrenic, and this is just another example.
In Spain, for example, some of the free OTA channels are also broadcasted by the cable and satellite providers, but not all. You know why? Because some broadcasters said those providers had to pay to deliver those channels with their own equipment, even to subscribers that have no other option to view their channels (OTA range is not 100% of the country) and to those that do recieve them OTA, it's the same product. In other words, they not only help deliver the same (free) product to more viewers, and even subsidize it, helping the broadcasters get more viewers (and better ad deals), but are expected to pay the broadcasters for doing it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2014, @08:05AM
Quit misusing the word "schizophrenic".