TV Network Exec Argues That Anything That Causes Cable Subscribers To Cut The Cord Is Illegal
from the felony-interference-with-a-business-model dept
Okay, let's start this out right by noting that the headline is only slight hyperbole. We've already talked about the TV networks suing Aereo for letting people connect, via the internet, to a TV antenna that picks up over-the-air (i.e., free) TV programming in NYC. I still can't quite figure out what the legal argument is here, other than that it upsets their business model. Watching over-the-air TV programming is, obviously, perfectly legal. We've yet to see a competent claim that place shifting legal TV is illegal. About the only real complaint is that this has the chance to drive more people to cut the cord, rather than pay ridiculously high cable/satellite TV prices. Of course, the networks these days thrive because of the insanely high carriage fees they get to charge the cable/satellite guys to include their network programming.But, you know, disrupting the TV networks business model isn't illegal.
Yet, as with the DISH Networks case, wherein the networks seem to be claiming that skipping commercials is illegal, the networks in the Aereo case don't seem to have much of an argument other than "this disrupts our business model."
In a hearing about whether or not the court should issue a preliminary injunction (as has happened in the similar, but different in important ways, ivi and Zediva cases) the judge didn't just roll over for the networks, and allowed Aereo's lawyers to grill an exec from CBS, who more or less admitted that they think (1) the DVR is a bigger threat than Aereo and (2) that their main issue is that Aereo may lead to more cord cutting.
But, again, getting more people to cut the cord isn't illegal. This is, once again, appearing like a "felony interference with a business model" case. The network exec actually tried to make the argument on the stand that the fact that someone might cancel their cable subscription to use Aereo (cord cutting) is a form of "harm" that requires Aereo be shut down by preliminary injunction. Thankfully, the judge wasn't buying that logic:
The judge also got into the act somewhat, addressing broadcasters' insistence that any customer who cancels his or her cable service to sign up with Aereo is a problem. How does subtracting one subscriber impact advertising, asked the judge, which caused the CBS executive to admit that it would have to be one Nielsen household that canceled for impact, and later that it would more likely have to be a substantial number of defections.There was some other damning info that came out in the hearing, including the fact that the TV networks refused to even talk to Aereo, never sent a cease & desist, and only decided to sue once they found out that Barry Diller was backing Aereo. Hopefully, the judge refuses the injunction. At the very least, it's good that he's not willing to just roll over and kill innovative startups because they mess with the entertainment industry's business model.
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Filed Under: barry diller, cord cutting, television
Companies: aero, dish networks
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Re: ...
The cables companies are only stupid and deluded as long as they don't have absolute backing from the government. With enough lobbying, "cutting the cord" could very well become illegal.
Just imagine the SWAT team led by your local sheriff kicking in your door at 3am and dragging you off to jail because you refused to pay for cable TV!
Unlikely as it is, it could happen...
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Response to: E. Zachary Knight on May 31st, 2012 @ 1:13pm
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Why I'm cutting the cable cord
Since it's causing me to cut the cord to cable, it therefore should be illegal.
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Why should having a tube instead of a wire make viewing free content illegal ?
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How to stop global warming:
2) More nice weather will mean that more people will spend time out side, and may cut their cables because they don't need TV since they're spending so much time outdoors
3) TV companies will sue global warming because it "may or may not" possibly make at least one but maybe a billion people stop paying for cable.
4) Global warming will be declared illegal. Problem solved.
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The end won't be pretty, Or smell good.
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Re: The end won't be pretty, Or smell good.
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Time to call Directv
This literally reminds me that I need to call DirecTV and tell them to stick it.
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Wider support
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My $1 goes on "motion denied."
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Well well well
We need laws to protect those jobs.
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That's like saying cell phone companies are free loading on telephone signals because the towers put them out for free.
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They don't TAKE it for free, it's SENT TO THEM for free.
I don't think freeloading means what you think it means...
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In the US (also in Canada) statute specifically calls out that over the air transmissions are NOT subject to retransmission rights.
Maybe your point is that it doesn't seem right, but it is perfectly legal. Again, no freeloading here.
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"Who pays retransmission royalties?
According to the Copyright Act, anyone who legally retransmits a “distant signal” is required to pay royalties to the owners of the programming contained within that transmission. Companies that “retransmit” such signals are usually cable television operators and direct-to-home satellite television providers. Other media providers, such as webcasters, will be subject to similar requirements. Similar laws apply in outside the U.S."
Further that a 'distant signal' is one that cannot be captured with a home antenna (typically 40-60 miles).
Thanks for making my point so eloquently.
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"Since each subscriber will use his or her own dedicated dime-sized antenna, located at Aereo’s Brooklyn, N.Y., head end, to receive their signal, the company says it is not subject to the same retransmission responsibilities as say, Comcast or DirecTV)."
Captured with a 'home antenna' at a 'short distance'.
Your move :)
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So yes, it is.
But let's take the silliness to a new level. Does it change things if each user drives down to the Aereo office and affixes their antenna and presses the button to stream the content to their home? From that perspective Aereo is simply a rental company renting out space to customers, yet the results are exactly the same. At what point is it infringement on retransmission rights? That's what we disagree on.
That's the thing with copyright - silly things like this suddenly matter when they shouldn't.
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You think you checkmated but you lost your king hours ago and just haven't realized it yet :D
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How does the signal from the antenna get from Aereo's office in Brooklyn to my computer on Long Island? Even given your idiotic scenario, when the user "pushes the button" it is a button on Aereo servers that is retransmitting the signal. In any event, that's not how it works, Aereo provides the antenna, captures the broadcast and retransmits the signal over the internet to the end user for a $12 fee.
The bottom line is that Aereo seeks a competitive advantage over cable and satellite by not paying for content. Apparently they don't think that they can compete on a level playing field.
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Also, you see it as they won't compete on a level playing field. I see it as they don't have to, so it's fair to have that advantage. Honestly, if the satellite/cable providers don't like it, get rid of retransmission fees altogether then! Done and done.
Of course, that thought probably won't even cross their minds will it?
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The antenna is sold to the customer. The customer uses *their* antenna to retransmit free over-the-air signals to themselves. This is allowed by law and does not require retransmission fees.
Again, leasing the antenna vs. selling it and leasing the physical space to keep it in is largely semantics. Either way both are exactly the same net result as what you just stated, except it's the customer doing it one way and it's Aereo doing it in the other. The law seems to clearly state that one is allowed yet the other is not.
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No you've avoided it....again.
The antenna is sold to the customer. The customer uses *their* antenna to retransmit free over-the-air signals to themselves. This is allowed by law and does not require retransmission fees.
That is wrong. The antenna captures the signal from the airways. The antenna doesn't retransmit shit. The content captured by the individual antenna is retransmitted by Aereo OVER THE INTERNET to the subscriber's computer. Why is this so hard for you to grasp?
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BTW, how does Aereo know where the signal is accessed from once they retransmit over the Internet? They have no control over that.
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Aereo offers over 20 channels of content, while networks like Comcast offer hundreds.
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As in BROADLY CASTING the signal to the public for anyone to access.
If it's in the air, anyone can do anything they want with it. Doubly so if it's broadcast to the public and not some pseudo-private signal.
Restricting a broadcast to just a small area doesn't make ANY sense. If the point were to do that, then they should make up a bullshit legalese jargon term, perhaps "publicly oriented narrowshoot" or something else braindead like that.
What next? Are you going to claim that if the government wanted to it could ban the retransmission of special shade of aubergine outside of the small area it's being blasted into?
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That's simply not true. Why are cable and satellite companies paying to retransmit those same broadcasts?
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Isn't that the core of the litigation? That is certainly not a settled matter of law. And at some level, the court will consider whether it is fair for business offering, in part, identical products for one competitor not to have to pay for content while the other do.
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They're taking something which would otherwise have a relatively small audience and making it global. One could reasonably surmise that this adds value by making it more accessible.
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Re:Aereo retransmission business model
What's wrong with this business model? It's exactly the same business model many internet co.s use including Google, Yahoo and Bing to name just the big search engines. They all just pick up MY (and your) personal information, monetize for their own benefit... If companies are selling my information I wanna know where my cut is. i wanna be able to have a say in who it's sold to (or if it is sold to anybody) and what the price point is. Just sayin...
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Re: Re:Aereo retransmission business model
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Re: Re:Aereo retransmission business model
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Classic Bridge Trolls
It's already being given away freely to everyone in the form of a broadcast. All this service does is ensure that you can actually receive this signal where you happen to live.
It only replaces what would be already happening under ideal physical conditions.
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Re: Classic Bridge Trolls
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DirecTV, in order to make sure customers didn't game the system by claiming residency in another state to get their local channels (for example to watch a football game playing on a local channel there) was forced to do spot beaming, which is where they will only beam the channels for a local market to an area around that market.
This of course results in people that travel and use portable dishes, such as in RV's, completely out of luck. It was impossible to get their home channels, and considered illegal for us to change the account address to allow their receiver to get the local stations of the area they were in.
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I certainly don't see how this law could possibly be in the public's best interest at all. I am surprised however that in the Aereo case it wasn't flat out claimed that it was against federal law, thus being a US v Aereo case instead of corporation v Aereo case.
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If you are watching NY and LA broadcast and you are in denver, the denver businesses paying for commercials aren't getting access to the viewers that are watching in their area which hurts them and the local network affiliate.
You are also less likely to see emergency warning singals.
It sucks for sure, but that was part of the reasoning for it.
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And they charged the customer an extra $5 per receiver for the privilege of getting the local channels too.
One good side effect was that the transponder for the local stations always had a stronger signal because it was spot beamed and was the last to lose signal in a storm. (I rolled out on service calls for a local HSP for a 3 year stretch about 6 years ago)
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The last I heard, Aereo only offers the service to people in the NY area that fall into the broadcast area, so that isn't a valid argument in the case.
I imagine that an over-the-air TV signal in NY city could be pretty spotty, so this seems a good test market for them for many reasons.
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All Aereo has to do is pay the same as cable and satellite. What's the matter, can't they compete?
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Unless, back in 2000, you couldn't receive the local network affiliate signal over the air, thus allowing you to get an exemption from your local tv station.
(DirecTV didn't have local feeds back then)
As a result, though I'm based in the Midwest, I still get the East and West Coast network feeds via DirecTV (for an additional fee, of course) as well as the local feeds they added in 2005.
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Do we remember why the switch to digital broadcast was a delayed for months? Because of potential safety concerns with folks not having appropriate equipment. So basically broadcast TV has public safety issues built in. So what better to supplement the safety system that to have an alternate way to access the same broadcast. What if you can't put an antenna on the roof of your building and don't want to pay for cable? Indoor antennas aren't always a good enough solution.
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I knew their prices were illegal.
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Maybe I need to get out in the real world more.
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So, what you're saying Gwiz is that Techdirt should be illegal because you spend more time here than watching Cable? :-)
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blah blah blah you freetards enjoy your movies of dogs licking each other blah.
premium content blah blah something cord cutting.
(troll end)
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You guys don't have the RIGHT to tell us that our subscription is For LIFE and you can't void it..
Jeez... Imagine your cell phone service provider telling you the same thing, that you can't cut off their services or they'll sue you for doing so.
You'll no doubt react as much as most of us, saying that It's our Right if we still want the services that they provide or not. Not theirs nor it's a lifetime subscription with no way out.
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Just when you seemed to be coming down from your SOPA induced frenzy, you go and post something silly like this. The argument isn't "it disrupts our business model", it is "it voids the contract under which we provide content".
You really just don't seem to get it sometimes.
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There is no contract between the broadcaster and the person or persons receiving.
You really just don't seem to get it sometimes.
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Seemed pretty clear what he meant considering what he quoted.
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Affiliates / local stations, which pay for the network feed, and insert local commercials - their business model is predicated on making money on the OTA commercials to pay for their transmission and studio facilities, their local news, etc. There is a contract with the network in one direction, and the implied contract of OTA broadcasting, which is that only viewers in the area can receive it, the accept it as is, and that as is includes commercials.
Cable / Sat / IPtv: There is also the contact for distribution in this manner. In this case, it's a question of what exposure and income is generated by the channels being on cable systems, and being made available.
Their right to limit their distribution is valid and true, anything that circumvents that harms their business and harms their rights.
Sometimes you really just don't think.
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Anything that causes cord cutting? Well then..
Raise their prices OR have crappy customer service OR provide low quality entertainment, since these could lead to customers cutting the cord.
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BTW, anyone ever tell you that you're a colossal douchebag?
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I'm pretty sure it was a judge who ruled against Zediva, not Hollywood legacy vampires.
BTW, anyone ever tell you that you're a colossal douchebag?
Probably not as often as people note what a whiney little bitch you are.
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programming
Where is the "ala-carte" option???
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Re: programming
Where is the "ala-carte" option???
Actually when you break it down, it's not all that unreasonable. You watch 10 channels and pay $60. If you watch 2 hours of TV per day, you're paying a buck an hour for your entertainment. Plus you're getting another 190 channels thrown in for free- which is probably what they're worth.
It is pretty discouraging that people think they're getting ripped off when they're paying probably less than a buck an hour for content. And I'd wager that there are many users out there for whom that price would be more like $.25-.50 an hour or less. Where else do you get that kind of quality entertainment, year in and out for a price like that?
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Wrong side of history.
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