Broadcasters Warn Supremes Of The Innumerable Non-Existent Horrors That Will Befall Everyone If Aereo Wins
from the your-threat-is-not-even-remotely-scary dept
As we've noted for some time, broadcasters have long argued that if they're not given what they want they're sure to go out of business, even if the evidence never actually supports that. Their latest incarnation of that has been in heavy rotation during their battle against live TV streaming service Aereo, with broadcasters arguing that if Aereo is allowed to survive, they'll pull all of their broadcast channels from over the air and move them to paid cable tiers. As we've stated previously they should go right ahead and do that, as the publicly-owned airwaves they're currently using can certainly be put to good use. Also, enjoy the wrath of sports fans (and the oodles of politicians who'll side with sports fans to earn political brownie points) when you attempt to do that.Gearing up for their Supreme Court showdown with Aereo on April 22, broadcasters have once again gleefully pulled out this empty threat. Hoping to convince the court's eight Judges (Justice Alito recused himself, possibly due to stock holdings) an Aereo win would be disastrous, the petitioners proclaim that free "quality" programming will cease to exist:
"The TV broadcasters reject Aereo's conclusion that cloud computing and other novel technologies could be at stake, but they do raise dire warnings about what might happen should the Supreme Court rule in Aereo's favor. As the brief states, "Indeed, if that is the world in which broadcasters must live, then they may be forced to reconsider whether they can afford to continue making the same quantity and quality of programming available to the public for free in the first place."The debate over the word "quality" aside, note the pretense again that they they would struggle with finances, ignoring the fact that CBS posted record earnings last year and even CBS's CEO recently admitting that an Aereo win would have no serious impact on earnings. Perhaps scarier is this dire warning included in the brief by the petitioners:
"If the transmit clause could be circumvented through the simple expedient of simultaneously supplying each user with a distinct transmission generated from a distinct copy, then cable and satellite companies could potentially devise Aereo-like workarounds of their own, and in the process render the transmit clause a dead letter."Wow, that would be rough, huh? Cable and satellite operators giving subscribers more flexible options for content that might in the process make a customer or two happy? Could even Lovecraft or Dante forge a more horrifying hellscape? Is there any point in living?
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Filed Under: broadcast, retransmission, streaming, supreme court, television
Companies: aereo
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9 justices who think "technology" is ensuring the briefs they're reading are non-standard and non-electronic in their delivery, or else it's blasphemous and must be ruled against.
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Still, Aereo is lacking here too. They could be making agreements with the Broadcasters to tailor the advertisements to the region where they are being streamed to in exchange of using a set up that is, you know, SANE instead of having a single antenna per user. Sounds like a win-win situation where such content would reach much more people.
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Look at YouTube: the ability to monetize with ads through ContentID is a really great win-win system that YouTube created itself and gave to the film/tv/music industries... but the response they get is that it doesn't mean anything until they can ensure that all unauthorized content will be filtered from YouTube forever.
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They don't HAVE to make agreements with broadcasters the way their product is designed.
Broadcasters aren't selling the programming they broadcast, that's the bait to get viewers to watch. The product that broadcasters are selling is the advertisements those viewers see along with the programming. Aereo doesn't interfere with those advertisements in any way, it actually increases the number of viewers who will see those ads and increases broadcaster profits.
The fact that broadcasters are threatening to cut their own throats if the court sides with Aereo doesn't make Aereo the bad guys, it makes the broadcasters suicidally stupid.
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I don't think devastating means what you think it means... Beware of the Boston strangler. Whatever it means now ;)
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I must be confused. Isn't Aereo a company that requires people to have a satellite subscription already? Aren't they simply putting the antenna on their roof instead of their customer's roof and sending the signal to the customer via internet?
How does this allow cable (especially) and sattelite companies to make a work around? All it does is change the location of the antenna and the cable that gets the data to the house right?
I don't get how this changes everything or can be exploited. Am I missing something or are the broadcasters missing something?
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The broadcasters simply want Aereo to pay for the privilege since Aereo is making money off their signal. After all, cable pays for the privilege too (thanks to past lengthy court battles).
They hope to add another revenue source of people watching broadcast signals over the internet - either that or they want Aereo to go away because they don't control it.
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I can see the argument for it I guess, but why should they be able to double dip? If Aereo has to pay, then the cable/satellite companies should be paying less so that the combined total the broadcasters get is the same.
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And Aereo isn't being offered through cable service, so it's not double dipping with cable. They want Aereo to pay what cable is paying.
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They can do this right now without legal difficulty. The Aereo case doesn't enter into doing that -- Aereo is about having the antenna somewhere other than where the receiver is.
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That is exactly the kind of zero-sum thinking that causes businesses big problems. The mind-set is that if someone else is making money, I must be loosing it. But the entertainment industry is not a zero-sum game. In this case Aereo has expanded the audience for the broadcasters at essential zero marginal cost to the broadcasters. The actual problem for the broadcasters is that they don't have an easy method of measuring the expanded audience so they can charge advertisers. Those measurements would probably be possible to get, but the broadcasters would have to cooperate with Aereo to get it.
The argument can be made that the broadcasters should be paying Aereo for expanding their market.
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No, what you perceive to be a loophole. Aereo perceives it to be *doing what is clearly legal.*
with the nod at this time going to those who align themselves with the broadcasters.
What nod? So far the courts have ruled in favor of Aereo and against the broadcasters in every case, but one.
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Following the law, as set by legal precendentof SCOTUS, is immoral and illegal.
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No, it provides over-the-air TV over the internet, by effectively renting you an aerial at their location.
I love Aereo.
I am in a location where I am close to broadcast towers but cannot get a good signal at my house due to tall buildings and trees. For me, Aereo just means I have effectively put my aerial in their facility and then I use the internet to get the signal from that aerial to my tv - just as I would (if I could) put the aerial on my roof and send the signal over my own ethernet network to distribute over-the-air tv to multiple locations in my house.
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or too low for line of site to the transmitter.
That is a service that customers will actually pay a small fee for and the broadcasters are
pissed that they don't get a percentage.
Of course they could build networks of towers like cellular companies do or provide streams
to customers direct from the studios instead of bothering to transmit but those would require
investments and ongoing billing, real work, so they would rather Aero pay extortion
like the cable outfits do.
Besides if Aero is not legally squashed as being a "broadcast" to a single listener
then overnight every digital cable system can cease sending checks without
ANY CHANGE change whatever!
Then the networks viewer count goes down and advertizing rates drop,
bonus checks would be cancelled! Oh the HORROR!
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They are even using the same exact law that allowed the original cable companies to do this to begin with, so it's very ironic that the cable companies are fighting them.
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While it won't be the end of broadcast television, it will simply evolve and create more cable companies in this country.
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because of the digital switchover, this is already the case in at least some areas, as the digital signals don't reach everywhere the analog ones did.
"This country will become a nation where you have to pay for a cable subscription or get satellite."
Or, better, just stop watching TV.
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But, but, reality TV man! American Idol, 'Ghost' hunters, FOX for crying out-
Yeah, I can't even finish that, 90% of the crap on tv these days is just that, you're not really missing anything if you simply stop watching it and move on to other sources of entertainment.
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Indeed. More like the Bait and Switchover.
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The basic business model of a TV broadcaster is to sell eyeballs to advertisers. They conduct surveys and collect data so they can accurately tell their customers how many eyeballs on average see ads. The programming is just to lure more eyeballs to watch, it's a net loss in and of itself in their core business model.
The broadcasters added a second money stream when they managed to get laws passed that said cable companies had to pay for programming if they wanted to have broadcast TV channels on their cable service. But nowhere in those laws does it say that someone using an antenna to pull in a broadcast to watch on their own personal TV has to pay for anything.
What Aereo does is simple. They designed their product to work entirely within the extremely complex tangle of case law, regulations, statutes and contracts that govern broadcast television. They don't need to make a deal with the broadcasters or pay a fee for the programming because the law says that they don't.
Aereo has actually increased broadcaster profits by making sure more eyeballs see the ads that the broadcaster's customers pay for. But the broadcasters can't stand that someone that isn't a broadcaster might make money, so they're suing.
The broadcaster threat to stop broadcasting if Aereo wins is very much like a man standing on a street holding a knife to his own throat and making unreasonable demands 'or else'. If he doesn't get his way, he's the one who will suffer the most -- the rest of us will probably be better off without crazies like him.
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So someone increasing the audience for their free programs makes them less valuable to advertisers; hmmm.. seems like Hollywood style logic is illogical.
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Maybe the bands they leave free can be resold by the government to someone that actually knows what the word quality means.
In the meantime, cord cutting could become the new national past time.
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Why don't they just stream their own content?
Also, if the FCC can require them to broadcast an HD signal, couldn't they also require them to broadcast a digital stream, as part of the arrangement for using that spectrum?
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Re: Why don't they just stream their own content?
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Aereo should really be compensating the broadcasters for using those signals. It's like if someone uses your property for a garage sale and then doesn;t compensate you for the use of your property.
I don't have any sympathy for Aereo because they are nothing but vultures who are charging people for content that should be free, since Aereo pays nothing for it.
If Aereo wasn't charging a fee, then I'd have sympathy for them, but they're nothing more than scavengers and looters.
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You don't need Aereo -- you can buy an HD antenna and a digital capture card, so let's conservatively say a couple hundred bucks for decent equipment, and then you have your own rig to watch for free.
Presumably, the people subscribing to Aereo find a small monthly fee for instant access with no setup to be a more appealing option, or they are for some other reason precluded from building their own rig.
Where's the problem?
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I have an HD aerial and am close to broadcast towers but CAN NOT receive a consistent signal because of BIG trees (not mine) and BIG buildings (not mine). Aereo is the only way I can get over-the-air TV and I am close to a major metroplex and easily within theoretical signal range.
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Really bad analogies...
No. It's like if someone used something I DISCARDED for a garage sale. Once I let it out into the world, it was no longer really my property. By letting go of it I implicitly granted permission for anyone to come along and do anything they want with it.
Once I sell or discard something, I don't get to retain any rights over it.
Of course any attempt to equate this situation to any sort of physical property is pretty *ssinine. You can't "broadcast" that crap in your garage that you haven't paid any attention to for 5 years.
The only reason any of this is even an issue is that broadcasters were able to illegitimately take advantage of payments they really weren't due. Now they have gotten used to this corruption and think it's their right when they never should have had it in the first place. It's all the result of wrongheaded "but think of the poor corporations" type of thinking in law or jurisprudence.
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Taking property from a physical sale deprives the owner of the use of it. This does not. (Where have we heard this before?)
They're not selling the broadcasting; they're renting the physical means to access it. A solar power company doesn't charge you for sunshine, you pay them to bring it into your house.
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Response to: kenichi tanaka on Feb 26th, 2014 @ 9:48am
Aereo charges for a service. They shift a freely broadcast signal from point A, an antenna, to point B, your internetdevice.
Trying to conflate that with theft simply because a small handfull of companies are doing their best to slice up the entire spectum (that you and I own) between themselves and hate the idea of innovation is nonsense.
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Re: Response to: kenichi tanaka on Feb 26th, 2014 @ 9:48am
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Why? They're getting additional eyeballs to see the ads they run.
"What people keep forgetting is that Aereo is taking free signals for TV broadcasting that they get for free and then turn around and charge customers of their service"
I don't think anyone's forgetting that. It's just not terribly relevant.
"Aereo should really be compensating the broadcasters for using those signals"
Why?
"It's like if someone uses your property for a garage sale and then doesn;t compensate you for the use of your property."
No, it's really not. In your analogy, the property owner is being deprived of something (the use of the portion of their property being used for the garage sale). In the Aereo case, broadcasters aren't being deprived of anything at all.
"If Aereo wasn't charging a fee, then I'd have sympathy for them"
Interesting perspective, where charging to provide a desired service (that costs money to provide) is considered "scavenging and looting".
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And if they had been smart about this, instead of spending a shit ton of money fighting a very public battle that is giving Aereo a ton of publicity, they could have most likely been nice and gone to Aereo from the outset and requested that Aereo provide them with viewing statistics that they could have used to justify higher ad rates to the companies that pay them for advertising with more accurate data than they currently get from a bullshit system like Nielsen ratings and my guess is that had they done that Aereo would more likely than not have been happy to comply with an arrangement like that.
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Wow. You must view people who do you a service very poorly then. They are providing a way to receive a free signal that you couldn't get before. They aren't charging your for the broadcast stream. They are charging you for providing you a signal to the broadcast. They are just a vehicle to help you get a free service. If I was interested in TV and I could put my own antenna up and get a signal, I wouldn't pay for Aereo. If for some reason my antenna couldn't get the signal due to my location or surroundings, then the only other option is to pay for Aereo. What I am confused with is Comcast has that same option when you pay for their cable service. They will add a monthly fee if you want to include free local channels. Done a little differently but seems to be the same concept. Why aren't they being attacked just like Aereo.
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They Broadcasters are panicked that unles Aero is labeled
a "rebroadcaster" by a judge the Cable companies will get
their own legal teams to figure a way for them to not be
"rebroadcasters" so they can stop paying "protection" money
(which is what "rebroadcast fees" really are).
The Broadcasters see that unless providing a signal to a
single household is a "rebroadcast" then Cable companies
can argue that settop boxes are a variation of the Aero
setup and that they, the Cable companies, are due multiyear refunds.
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Suppose I own a skyscraper which is located adjacent to a baseball field. If I rent access to the balconies of the skyscraper which overlook the field, so that people can watch the game without having to buy a ticket from the team, I don't see why I should owe money to the baseball team, or why I should either grant people access for free or not do so at all.
If the baseball team doesn't like it, they're free to build a dome or a big wall or something to obstruct the view.
Free riding is not inherently bad.
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Broadcasters provide this stream of water so that anybody on the banks can drink as much as they want for free.
Along comes Aero and builds pipes to houses not close enough to the bank to drink directly,
for which they charge each house a small fee.
Now the suppliers of the stream that has been given away free for years are pissed that Aero
is getting paid for providing additional houses access to their stream and they threaten
to stop the stream for everybody ?
The broadcasters will make so much more money if they just stop producing content !
Perfectly clear now.
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TV and antenna manufacturers too
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Perhaps they should just move to Germany. That way they can force everyone to pay them. Even those who don't use their services.
Television licence -Germany
"As of 1 January 2013, the licence fee in Germany is now a blanket contribution of � 17.98 per month (� 215.76 per annum) for all households and is payable regardless of equipment or television/radio usage.[28] Businesses and institutions must also contribute (the amount is based on several factors including number of employees, vehicles and, for hotels, number of beds).[29] The fee is billed by the month, but typically paid quarterly (yearly advanced payments are possible)."
and:
"Germany currently has one of the largest total public broadcast budgets in the world. The per capita budget is close to the European average. Annual income from licence fees is approximately 7.6 billion euros, with an additional 500 million euros in revenue from commercials.
The board of public broadcasters sued the German states for interference with their budgeting process, and on 11 September 2007 the Supreme Court decided in their favour. This effectively rendered the public broadcasters institution independent and self-governing."
Man, the broadcasters are really living the sweet life over there...
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As the brief states, "Indeed, if that is the world in which broadcasters must live, then they may be forced to reconsider whether they can afford to continue making the same quantity and quality of programming available to the public for free in the first
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If the programming is "free", how can they be upset that Aereo isn't paying them for it?
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They want that money or Aero's head, and since without income Aero dies, then they would be happy.
These "we are entitled" content people would rather have less money, smaller audience for advertizers, than
see another company get a dime for providing what people want.
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Will go out of business huh?
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The end result might be roughly equivalent to a broadcaster building a taller antenna tower and broadcasting with higher wattage to reach more people -- but without any additional cost. Is there any broadcaster that would not want to reach more people?
But then of course if Aereo were to strip out the original commercial advertising and replacing it with its own, then that would indeed create a very serious problem.
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Much more concise and acurate than I could manage.
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Just one Judge
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Aereo
This has been in place in England for decades.
I live in a canyon in Hollywood, but have available two cable carriers. I can't afford them (retired).
Ironically, I worked in TV and Film for decades!
I will be one of the first to use Aereo.
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