Everything else I'm neither interested in or can find available streaming online...

No different than going into a store and walking out without paying.

The whole Cable industry was originally set up to serve as a Community Antenna, especially for communities and neighborhoods where reception of over the air signals were poor or non-existent otherwise. That was its purpose before satellites came in.

Over the air broadcasting was based on the concept of licenses to private broadcasters, who, in return for the right to make money by selling commercials, offered their programming for free to the public. The CATV antennas were businesses that charged a nominal fee to subscribers, as a way to provide those signals to homes that could not receive them otherwise. They also delivered more "eyeballs" for commercials.

Then -- as with everything else -- the broadcasting n cable industries got greedy, Instead of being satisfied with making gobs of money from commercials, local broadcasters and cable operators started looking for every possible way to gouge both viewers and each other with fees.

Companies like Aero are basically getting back to basics. Supposedly, offering alternatives and competing is what capitalism is about -- but that was before the era of rapacious greed.

You have to pay broadcasting fees for shows. Aero refused.
That is not getting back to basics, it's theft.

The broadcast channels pay the fees that they transmit OTA. They make a lot of their money from commercials, and from their non-OTA signals (ie, cable). Not to mention subsidies from the government that pays for our OTA infrastructure.

Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime all pay their fees. That's why it was only ONE company affected.
That's it.

It's a matter of corporate greed versus the public interest.

I know that having a public information infrastructure to serve the public interest is a quaint notion these days -- but the broadcasters have their license because the broadcast spectrum is a limited commodity. The way it was set up (rightly or wrongly) was that they would have a license to use that public resource to make money, but they also had certain obligations to serve the public.Broadcasters did quite well financially on that basis.

That is different than the Internet, which has larger capacity, or private distribution systems for cable channels.

Therefore, the right to pick up and retransmit over the air signals shouldn't;t be subject to additional fees and "retransmission" rights just so cable companies and broadcasters can squeeze more dollars out of their use of a public resource.

The whole core problem is deregulation.

The idea has been that broadcasters (not cable-only or Internet content providers) make a lot of money by providing entertainment, but were also expected to provide a level of public service such as news and other important community programming. So for example, we got the Beverly Hillbillies along with news that was expected to be news and not infotainment.

(Although entertainment is also a public service in a different way. It's the quality that has always been the issue.)

But since the days of Raygun, the drive to deregulte took away that trade off, and the obligation of broadcasters to operate according o standards of service along with making a buck.

Look at the series "Big Bang Theory". It's a high-priced commodity. Netflix doesn't have it's reruns, too expensive. Neither does Hulu. So, should Aero be allowed to just take it for free and air it on the internet, while legitimate companies do not?

WKMG is my local CBS affiliate. They air BBT, just as they air the rest of the CBS broadcast. They pay to be an affiliate, which in turn, generates them income via advertising deals with the local cable co (Brighthouse), and their own advertising deals (OTA commercials). No one should be able to just air what they like and not pay for it.

You seem to be overlooking the fact that i is called BROADCASTING for a reason. It has traditionally been a very profitable trade off for everyone involved -- including the poeple who provide the content.

New technologies and delivery systems are great. But we shouldn't be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, just so they can squeeze even more out of us.

we and the cable company that brought us television signals that would have been impossible to receive otherwise because of mountains and distance were pirates, stealing content, violating broadcast rights.

A broadcast signal licensed to be sent into the air over the PUBLIC airwaves is not the same as stealing electricity.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc.

Stations like CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX have always broadcast their signals for viewers, who watch advertisements and pay for the TV. I'm doing the same thing my grandparents did for TV.

Only difference is ever since the digital conversion, it's in 1080i HD.

and won't feel one ounce of guilt about it. With Aereo I at least see their ads, but now I won't. Too bad for them.

That's an interesting rationalization.

Not the ads that the shows get paid for. Aero doesn't pay. Everyone else does.

How fucking hard is this to understand?

If they are carrying a station, they should also be carrying the ads the broadcaster are sending out.

But that could be modified without killing the concept.

So what does this ruling leave things like Slibgboxes? Right now, I can rent out a space in a data warehouse somewhere near London (England), install equipment that can view TV, pay the required TV licence fee, have that hooked up to a slingbox ... and put the other one here in NC, hook it up to the TV... and I'm now watching UK TV. And as far as I know it's totally legal.

So if Aereo somehow switched over to the Slingbox concept, would it be legal? That the performance is happening in a warehouse, but placeshifted to where the end consumer is... is that legal?

“Aereo’s behind-the-scenes technological differences do not distinguish Aereo’s system from cable systems, which do publicly perform,”

Full text of the court's decision/reasoning (.pdf): http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-461_l537.pdf

Theft is theft. The Supreme court was 100% correct.

You can still use HULU. They pay their rebroadcast fees.

That's like getting upset because The Pirate Bay got shut down.

Aereo's business model wasn't about copyright infringement in the first place. They believed they were simply providing a very long TV antenna cable but the Supreme Court disagreed. The Pirate Bay's (TPB) model has been using a service that can and does allow anyone to redistribute copyright-infringing content. Plus with TPB being international what's copyright infringing in one place may not be in another.

If you have ever used TPB, you would notice the strong urge to install an ad blocker on your browser very quickly. Some of those ads are quite pornographic. I wouldn't have thought that Aereo went that low in its advertising.

Got a free month subscription to both and I'm binging like a kid in a candy store. Running both through my xbox & ipad. So very, very easy to fall in love with this.

other stations in much further than you'd imagine.

stations, or cable stations too?

The idea is that they provided an antenna and a long TV antenna lead to connect with a device near you. The broadcasters saw this as the same thing that cable & satellite companies do already ... Cable & Satellite TV companies obtain retransmission consent from the broadcasters by paying money to them for that privilege. Aereo was not willing to pay retransmission fees because it didn't view itself as retransmitting the signals.

The Supreme Court sided with the broadcasters.

It seems to me that since a tv network generates most of its revenue by broadcasting ads, more people watching those ads (by whatever means) would be better for it, but I'm not sure how much the retransmission fees are compared to the number of Aereo users they could claim when selling to advertisers. Also, since Aereo watchers probably don't show up in any measured Nielson type rating systems, they couldn't claim the additional viewers when trying to sell ad time, so they are losing money on the retransmission and not getting to claim the viewers either.

and cable companies must pay for retransmission.

“Aereo’s behind-the-scenes technological differences do not distinguish Aereo’s system from cable systems, which do publicly perform,”

Full text of the court's decision/reasoning (.pdf): http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-461_l537.pdf

The cable companies need to do whatever it takes to unbundle and charge accordingly.

All these phony bells and whistles they keep adding onto the services just infuriate the customers.

It is more than a shame that a bright idea like Aereo was shot down...I hope they find a way around it.



Tikki

when I dumped them I told them to let me know when they offer channels a la carte

what about cable isnt this what cable WAS supposed to d? nooooooooo. they whined we want to be content providers . they went whee whee whee to the supreemes they got that . then up came free to air tv sats . they went Whee whee whee to the superemes and complaind about the out people in diffrent areaas who got different packages (say someone living in sonora ca getting the losangles package . then they whinded about local ads then they whined about free to air channels like cnn when they were in the clear . so on and so fourth. if this goes to 100 $ which a lot of us cant afford , i am pulling the effing plug for good . on their salary, maybe the scotus should pay my cable bill