Aereo Fallout Begins: Fox Uses Ruling To Attack Dish's Mobile Streaming Service

from the because-welcome-to-this-new-mess dept

Fri, Jun 27th 2014 9:19am — Mike Masnick

We've been saying that the Aereo ruling is going to create a litigation headache for a number of companies... and here we go. You may recall that a bunch of TV broadcasters have sued Dish over its attempts to provide innovative features to consumers, such as its Dish AutoHopper and its Dish Anywhere streaming offering. So far, those lawsuits have gone nowhere and fast. But Fox sees renewed life in its effort to shut down innovation thanks to the Supreme Court's unfortunate "looks like a duck" test.

Within hours of Wednesday's ruling, Fox had run to the 9th Circuit appeals court with the news. The 9th Circuit had previously rejected Fox's attempt to shut down the Dish technology, but Aereo has renewed its hopes of killing some innovation:

Fox's lawyers believe the Aereo ruling strengthens their case against Dish. In a letter to the court Richard Stone, partner at Jenner & Block, wrote that the supreme court had ruled Aereo's service constitutes an "unauthorized public performance of Fox's copyrighted works."

"Dish, which engages in virtually identical conduct when it streams Fox’s programming to Dish subscribers over the internet – albeit also in violation of an express contractual prohibition – has repeatedly raised the same defenses as Aereo which have now been rejected by the supreme court," he wrote.

Stone highlighted that the court had specifically rejected Aereo's assertion that it is "merely and equipment provider" and that Aereo's subscribers were the ones transmitting content.

Get ready, because Aereo is going to get cited a lot by the legacy entertainment industry as they quickly seek to destroy innovation.

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Filed Under: autohopper, copyright, dish anywhere, dvr, looks like a duck, remote viewing, streaming
Companies: aereo, dish, fox

41 Comments

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Ninja (profile), 27 Jun 2014 @ 7:26am

Disease spreading. Other deaths will follow.

But really, Fox didn't even wait for the body to cool off... Proving, once more, they are the worst of the pack.
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silverscarcat (profile), 27 Jun 2014 @ 8:15am

And this is why...
Copyright loses more and more respect by innovators, writers and consumers on a daily basis.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 9:27am

Re:
Worst of the pack?

Its more like par for the course. I never understand why people try to elevate one business over another one. On deep inspection, you will find almost every large corporation sinful as hell regardless of which Religious, Ethical, or Social standard you use.

Kill a person... you are a murderer...
Murder Millions and you are a CONQUEROR!

See how that works out?
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 9:36am

Re: And this is why...
Yep, that's another reason why it's so short sighted to push SOPA/TTPA/etc.

They might score a short win and more profits today, but tomorrow they're undermining themselves a ton for when the future generation takes over and repeals all that crap, and a lot of the old copyright laws to.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 9:39am

Less innovation and more litigation. It's the American way!
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Charles (profile), 27 Jun 2014 @ 9:39am

A question to Fox
How much money will Fox make with no viewers?
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 9:53am

it's not all bad Old school ad driven TV is on it's way out anyways. These guys were propping them up. They are just digging their own grave as far as I am concerned.

Drop your TV bundles folks go get Netflix, Amazon prime. (not Hulu) stop giving these guys money for TV.
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Anonymouse, 27 Jun 2014 @ 10:00am

Fox does realize that Dish actually does have a license to rebroadcast, unlike Aereo, and that was the heart of the "quacks like a mongoose" reasoning the Supreme Kangaroo Court used?

Fox is just throwing away money, money they will recoup in the next round of retransmission fee negotiations, and we're all going to pay for it no matter what broadcast aggregator company we are using.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 10:18am

Re: A question to Fox
Plenty when they lobby for a federal bailout!

After all, if we need to constantly make our IP laws harsher and more Draconian almost every year, why not just start giving IP holders money to make up for all that 'lost' revenue to piracy.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 10:22am

Re:
I think their argument is that they have a license to rebroadcast over their Satellite network but not over the Internet.
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John Fenderson (profile), 27 Jun 2014 @ 10:42am

Re:
"we're all going to pay for it no matter what broadcast aggregator company we are using"

Speak for yourself. I'm certainly not going to pay for it! :)
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Baron von Robber, 27 Jun 2014 @ 10:52am

I hope one of the judges on SCOTUS use Dish-Hopper.
SCOTUS judge: "Ah, that Aereo ruling was easy. Now to watch American Idol on my Dish-Hopper"

Dish-Hoppper: "Discontinued due to recent SCOTUS rulling"

SCOTUS judge" ?!?"
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John Cressman, 27 Jun 2014 @ 11:03am

Again... a simple idiot test...
Again... ALL JUDGES - ESPECIALLY SUPREME COURT JUSTICES - need to be FORCED to pass a basic understanding test of whatever subject they are sitting in judgement of or be forced to recuse themselves. Sure... there would be a TON of recusals, but it would be better than terrible rulings.

It's just not fair that the ignorant make decisions that affect everyone.
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Ninja (profile), 27 Jun 2014 @ 11:04am

Re: Re:
Actually I mean in their business field. Indeed there are worse if you broaden the population. Totally agree with you.
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DannyB (profile), 27 Jun 2014 @ 11:07am

Re: And this is why...
> Copyright loses more and more respect by innovators, writers and consumers on a daily basis.

Young people already have close to zero respect for it.

Now extrapolate to when they are the ones wearing suits, bribing politicians, etc.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 11:25am

Re:
Of course, some of us live in areas where we don't have many options for internet, and are stuck with bandwidth caps that make streaming, given the amount of content we watch, an option that's not viable. My choices are my cable company's internet with a 250gb cap (and then overages, or a more expensive plan with a higher cap that would end up really costing me as much as my pay TV service does by the time all the extra fees are added on), or 1.5mbit DSL that would barely train up at half of that on a good day toward the end of my five five year tenure with Qwest (now Centurylink). There are also shows on certain channels I watch (and enjoy) that are not carried on streaming services.
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Ninja (profile), 27 Jun 2014 @ 11:38am

Re: Re: And this is why...
Young people already have close to zero respect for it.

It will be interesting when they get older enough to dictate the rules.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 11:39am

Re: I hope one of the judges on SCOTUS use Dish-Hopper.
Don't be silly, the SCOTUS judges don't use any technology at all.
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Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 27 Jun 2014 @ 11:41am

Re: Re:
Some? I think you mean all of us (in the US) don't have many options for internet.
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Michael, 27 Jun 2014 @ 11:50am

Re: Re:
Yes, in fact their license specifically excludes re-broadcasting over the internet.
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andypandy, 27 Jun 2014 @ 11:55am

Big loss but also a big win for the future
Media companies like fox are always looking at the very near future, they are incapable of looking further than a a year or two into the future.

This ruling will stifle innovation there is no doubt about it, fox proves this by using the ruling a few hours later to demand a Judge rule in their favour in the Dish case.

What many do not realise is that in the not too distant future the people are going to demand changes to copyright laws, and this case is a perfect example of why and when used in future arguments will work against the big providers and distributors.

I am sad this happened but also relived to know that this is just more evidence as to why the big three need to be cut up and the laws now have to be changed or the country will face irrelevance in media circles very soon.

The fact is there are more and more STARTUPS creating content and they do not have to follow the old copyright laws and will have more power to change the laws in the future to enable people
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 11:58am

Re: Re: I hope one of the judges on SCOTUS use Dish-Hopper.
SCOTUS Judge: "Of course I know what 'Twitter' and 'tweets' are, I use them all the time!" *ties his latest ruling/opinion to a carrier pigeon to be delivered*
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Michael, 27 Jun 2014 @ 12:05pm

Re: Big loss but also a big win for the future
The fact is there are more and more STARTUPS creating content

Don't worry, when they start to become a problem they will get "regulated".
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Anonymouse, 27 Jun 2014 @ 12:25pm

I do not know how, exactly, the Hopper works. So I do not know if it is:

Saved on network devices and sent via the internet to a subscriber device after login.

Saved on a consumer home device (even a rented one) and then transmitted from that device over the internet to another device the subscribe logs in from.

One is the company rebroadcasting, the other is the subscriber time and place shifting. One requires a separate license (for reasons that are still unclear to me...its all 1's and 0's now, right?), and the other has already been cleared by the courts as acceptable.
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John Fenderson (profile), 27 Jun 2014 @ 12:27pm

Re: Re: And this is why...
Not just young people. I'm an old guy, and the cumulative effect of all the changes in copyright law and the abusive actions of industries in the name of copyright have pretty much eliminated my respect for it as well.

To clarify: I believe that sane and reasonable copyright law can have be of great societal value. I don't believe that we have sane and reasonable copyright law.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 12:53pm

Re: Re: Re: And this is why...
This is exactly how I feel.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 12:56pm

Re:
It doesn't matter how the Hopper works because it looks like a duck and Fox is going hunting.
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jupiterkansas (profile), 27 Jun 2014 @ 12:57pm

Re: Big loss but also a big win for the future
"in the not too distant future the people are going to demand changes to copyright laws"

They're already demanding changes and have been for years, but nobody who can actually make those changes is listening or has any interest in fixing the problem.
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Michael, 27 Jun 2014 @ 1:21pm

Re: Re:
Dirty pirate. By not paying for the FOX programming you are not watching you are STEALING.
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That One Guy (profile), 27 Jun 2014 @ 1:53pm

Re: Re:
Unfortunately true. With the SC ruling, how something is done no longer matters, the only important thing legally is what it looks/acts like.
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gorehound (profile), 27 Jun 2014 @ 3:15pm

Stop feeding the MAFIAA ! Do not let them get any cash out of you.Not going to solve the issue but at least you won't be a part ofit.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 4:06pm

Re: Re: Re:
There aren't many capped internet connections in the UK anymore (I think you can get one if you try hard). All it took was a little competition between the ADSL (BT) and DSL (Virgin) guys to benefit the consumer!
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Jun 2014 @ 6:47pm

Re: Re: Re: And this is why...
It will be interesting when they get older enough to dictate the rules.

After many years of observation, I have stopped being surprised at how frequently logic, passion, and righteous indignation at the injustices of The System can be dulled by six figures, stock options, and performance bonuses.
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Rekrul, 28 Jun 2014 @ 12:26am

It's SCOTUS that needs to get killed off, not Aereo. Seriously, who thought it was a good idea to appoint technologically clueless people to the highest court in the country for life?

Maybe I should be appointed to make decisions on foreign policy. Sure, I'm pretty clueless on the issues involved, but that never stopped SCOTUS.
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Kyle, 28 Jun 2014 @ 11:27am

Here's the thing. Aereo was retransmitting and that is where SCOTUS got them (although I disagree with their interpretation). DISH on the other hand does not retransmit the content, it provides a built-in SLING adapter to do that. It's up to the end-user to do what they wish with the content they paid for, this includes sending it via stream to themselves. That is the fundamental difference between the two.
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Quiet Lurcker, 28 Jun 2014 @ 11:32am

Re: Again... a simple idiot test...
A noble thought, but likely rather impractical. You can't really know what knowledge is needed to understand a case until very shortly before it goes to trial. And by then (at least under current rules), the judge can't recuse without REALLY good reason.

I'm actually more concerned with two facts. First, it's obvious to me, that SCOTUS has started giving a lot more weight to political considerations in their rulings than in past. Second, it's equally obvious to me that they've started showing signs of being incapable of basic, rational thought processes.
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1st Dread Pirate Roberts (profile), 28 Jun 2014 @ 9:06pm

Sell the equipment
Some of the disqussion I've heard about aero is that they retransmit "about the same time" as the transmission which is freely available through public airwaves. If I could hook up an HD antenna to my phone I could pick up the signals. So, what if:

1. They delayed the retransmission (some sites said maybe 10 minutes, what about an hour?)
2. What if they SOLD the equipment to the subscribers rather than renting it? Maybe $99 or $129 depending upon the amount of data storage you want. They would just be another cloud service. In fact, they could encrypt the signals when recorded, and decrypt them only on the subscriber's system. Now it CAN'T be a public performance.

Let's be real, here. You only get the signals for your local area. You can't get Chicago channels if you live in New York. Some of us live in areas where there are NO channels via HD. Our options are limited. Lucky guys.
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Whatever (profile), 29 Jun 2014 @ 5:23am

Re: Sell the equipment
1) The answer is hard to pin down. I think that "length of the program" may end up being a potential yardstick.
2) Still dancing around the legal head of the pin. It's not the equipment that is relevant, it's the service rendered. The issue is that for a single user in a single case, it's likely not an issue. However, Aereo does it on a massive scale, parallel. That is the nature of a cable TV undertaking - or even better IPtv.

You only get the signals for your local area.

Actually, Aereo also included (in New York) Bloomberg Financial, which was not broadcast.
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appleinaz (profile), 29 Jun 2014 @ 10:04am

Re: Dish actually does
It seems a lot of people are totally ignoring or missing this from the OP: > " albeit also in violation of an express contractual prohibition"
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appleinaz (profile), 29 Jun 2014 @ 10:09am

Re: Big loss but also a big win for the future
They DO have to follow the laws. But congrats for getting to the actual point of all this people don't like - the law itself, rather than the ruling. Which is what the SCOTUS ruling also stated - get the law changed if you ant your concerns addressed.
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appleinaz (profile), 29 Jun 2014 @ 10:11am

Re: Re: Sell the equipment
>> Actually, Aereo also included (in New York) Bloomberg Financial, which was not broadcast.

Interesting point, I hadn't realized that...
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