On Friday, April 25, 2014 10:13:03 AM UTC-4, Home Guy wrote:
trader_4 wrote:



Plenty of phones are bought directly by end-users.



Define plenty.



-----------

Apple Wants to Sell More iPhones Through Its Own Stores � But Can It?

July 17, 2013



Apple sells a lot of iPhones through its retail stores � but not nearly

as many as it would like. Indeed, at a recent gathering of Apple Store

leaders, sources said CEO Tim Cook was dismayed that only 20 percent of

all iPhones are sold through Apple Stores, and that he�d like to see

that number rise in the months ahead.



The biggest and most obvious constraint on such an effort is the size of

Apple�s retail operations. In the U.S., for example, Apple has about 250

retail locations � most, if not all, very well-trafficked. But its

carrier partners together have about 9,000, according to CIRP. Add to

that 1,000 or so Best Buy stores, and a bunch of other retail outlets

like RadioShack, and Apple�s plan to claim iPhone sa



http://allthingsd.com/20130717/apple...es-but-can-it/

------------



I'm assuing that when you buy a phone at an istore, you are 100% buying

the phone in a single transaction, vs when you "obtain" a phone through

a cellular provider you are paying for it $20 a month for 2 years as

part of your cellular service.



I know that one factor is cost - and many people simply can't afford to

pay $500 in one shot up front for a phone. Strange that the article

doesn't mention that.



By far the largest customers of the cell phone manufacturers are

the carriers. Most consumers get their phones from a carrier or

a channel that sells a particular carrier's cell phones.



I'm not expecting that a tv tuner would go into ALL phones made by any

given manufacturer.



I'm wondering why a few models or even just one model wouldn't have a

built-in tuner as an advanced feature, meant to give a marketing

advantage for those people that do purchase their phones outright before

signing up for a plan.

And I gave you one possible reason, but you ignore it.
That is that the vast majority of cell phones are sold through the
cell phone carriers. Even your own Apple data confirms that. Just
20% of their phones are sold via their own stores. I'd bet that
the majority are sold through carriers. So, if you were Apple or LG
and your 4 major customers that account for over half your sales
were telling you they didn't want to see
a TV in the phone because they prefer to see customers run up airtime data
minutes, what would you do? Maybe that's the wrong question. What
would a reasonable business person do? Note that I'm not saying that
is what is going on, only that it's possibly one of the reasons.

Other factors could be the size of the smallest TV tuner is too large,
the power required, interference from the cell phone transmitter that is an
inch away. Someone else also pointed out the antenna size. In the
city, folks have rabbit ears to get TV reception. Outside the city
you typically have a Yaggi antenna. Where would you put those for
a cellphone? You're going to look pretty crazy walking around with
a yaggi on your head. And even if it could work with a tiny antenna
inside the phone that would work in part of a city, maybe they figured
out it's not robust enough, won't work well enough for enough people,
in enough areas to make it a useful feature. Didn't we just have a
thread about an allegedly "unusable" cell phone? Maybe the cell phone
companies don't want a bunch of dissatisfied customers with something
that they know would only work half-assed.

In article , Home Guy "Home"@Guy. com
wrote:

I'm assuing that when you buy a phone at an istore, you are 100% buying
the phone in a single transaction, vs when you "obtain" a phone through
a cellular provider you are paying for it $20 a month for 2 years as
part of your cellular service.

Nope. At least through Sprint it is pretty much the same as going
through a Sprint store, except the wait times at Sprint stores are MUCH
less.
--
³Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive,
but what they conceal is vital.²
‹ Aaron Levenstein

Kurt Ullman wrote:

I'm assuing that when you buy a phone at an istore, you are 100%
buying the phone in a single transaction, vs when you "obtain" a
phone through a cellular provider you are paying for it $20 a
month for 2 years as part of your cellular service.

Nope. At least through Sprint it is pretty much the same as going
through a Sprint store, except the wait times at Sprint stores are
MUCH less.

So why does Apple want to sell more phones in it's istore?

It's well known that the cellular phone companies are paying exactly the
same price for an iphone that Apple charges retail customers, even
though cell companies buy them in quantities of hundred thousand.

Why would it benefit Apple to try to get more of these "sales" (if
they're not really sales) in their istore?

Oren writes:
On Thu, 24 Apr 2014 17:28:33 -0400, Lee B
wrote:

Aereo appears to be an interesting idea, but it only has the same
channels I can get anyhow (still close to that candelabra). If it
carried a few more channels like TNT, I'd be more interested.

I'm just guessing here. Aereo will be stopped by SCOTUS. There was two
hours of oral arguments in the hearing.

Ruling will be around June. I'd not bet on Aereo.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/04/bu...plain-english/

On Friday, April 25, 2014 10:50:40 AM UTC-4, Home Guy wrote:
Kurt Ullman wrote:



I'm assuing that when you buy a phone at an istore, you are 100%

buying the phone in a single transaction, vs when you "obtain" a

phone through a cellular provider you are paying for it $20 a

month for 2 years as part of your cellular service.



Nope. At least through Sprint it is pretty much the same as going

through a Sprint store, except the wait times at Sprint stores are

MUCH less.



So why does Apple want to sell more phones in it's istore?



It's well known that the cellular phone companies are paying exactly the

same price for an iphone that Apple charges retail customers, even

though cell companies buy them in quantities of hundred thousand.



You have a cite for that? First time I've heard it and it seems
very illogical. I smell BS.



Why would it benefit Apple to try to get more of these "sales" (if

they're not really sales) in their istore?

Did you read your own source:

"Like the iPod before it, the iPhone is a gateway product that introduces new customers to the rest of the company's offerings. As Cook said last year at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, "What is clearly happening now is that the iPhone is creating a halo for the Macintosh. The iPhone has also created a halo for iPad."

In article , Home Guy "Home"@Guy. com
wrote:

Kurt Ullman wrote:

I'm assuing that when you buy a phone at an istore, you are 100%
buying the phone in a single transaction, vs when you "obtain" a
phone through a cellular provider you are paying for it $20 a
month for 2 years as part of your cellular service.

Nope. At least through Sprint it is pretty much the same as going
through a Sprint store, except the wait times at Sprint stores are
MUCH less.

So why does Apple want to sell more phones in it's istore?


Most of the indepedent stores who resell get a cut, I would think that
adds up to serious bucks with absolutely no outlay for Apple. It isn't
like Mom&Pop cellular where they have to get a store, advertise, etc.
Selling iPhones for the companies has to be pretty much all profit for
Apple. If Radio Shack and Best Buy want Sprint, Verizon, etc., "stores"
inside of their stores, Apple would have to be at least as profitable.
My other guess is that they just like the control.


--
"Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive,
but what they conceal is vital."
-- Aaron Levenstein

"Scott Lurndal" wrote in message news:IEu6v.121268
stuff snipped

I'm just guessing here. Aereo will be stopped by SCOTUS. There was two
hours of oral arguments in the hearing.

Ruling will be around June. I'd not bet on Aereo.


http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/04/bu...plain-english/

Yabbut . . . The pundits were so sure that the ACA would be nixed by the
court that news outlets actually announced that it was - and then had to
issue retractions. Aereo's had some significant wins in the lower courts so
I wouldn't write them off just yet.

It ain't over until it's over.

--
Bobby G.

"Home Guy" "Home"@Guy. com wrote in message
...
Robert Green wrote:

There are many more different types of consumer electronics
products in asia that are not seen in the US market, like
digital versions of the good-old VCR (not talking about
cable boxes with hard drives either).

You can get them here if you know where to look:

http://www.mediasonic.ca/product.php?id=1365123671

$40 for an ATSC HD personal video recorder at Amazon.
Just add a USB stick or external HD.

Show me something like that, but with an internal SATA hard drive
(either built-in or optional).

I've had a number of tunerless media recorders before this that are capable
of supporting internal SATA/PATA drives as well as the USB externals and I
can say unequivocally that external drive support is far more useful. You
can easily detach the drive, back it up or as I do, distribute the
recordings to the in-home media network. One drive for movies, another for
episodic TV, etc.

External drive support is far more valuable, at least to me. Eliminating
internal drive support makes the media box both smaller and *way* cheaper to
produce as a result. Thirty six bucks for a device capable of recording HD
TV from free OTA broadcasts is a bit of a miracle compared to the $100-$150
*tunerless* standard density boxes I've used before. Admittedly they had
more features like an ethernet port and the ability to record a composite
video signal, but that's nowhere near as useful as a built in ATSC tuner
that has a program guide and HD quality recordings. The Mediasonic box even
has composite, component and RF outputs making it compatible with my network
of old SD TV's throughout the house that serve as a front door video
intercom.

I can scan the electronic program guide, selecting what I want to record in
the next few days with a couple of clicks. Removable media also means you
don't have to do the TIVO shuffle when the disk is full and you either have
to watch, erase or archive old recordings to make space. Now I just mount
another $50 external USB disk and I am back to recording. The biggest
downside is that now instead of getting 1 hour per gig at SD resolution it
takes 5GB per HD hour. With 3 and 4 TB disks on the market, that's not
really an issue since the USB port seems able to supply enough power to run
even the USB bus-powered drives. I believe from what I've read it also can
support multiple drives through a powered USB hub, but I have yet to test
that.

While it's still a little bit buggy (latest firmware is V.14), the ability
to record in HD for $36 bucks (and the cost of an external drive, which many
of us have anyway) is really a quantum leap. I don't know why Panasonic,
Polaroid and many others have left the DVR/PVR market, but I suspect the
content providers have made it clear that they want to control any kind of
recording by end-users.

Personally I think they haven't put TV's in phones because not
many people are crazed enough about TV to want to suffer through
looking at it on a 4" screen with a 1/2" speaker.

The big draw is, I would think, people watching sports - any games that
are still broadcast OTA these days.

That's a good point. For some Sportacus types even a 4" screen that allows
them to watch a championship game would be a draw. But I suspect you're
right that content providers want to control that signal as well, and OTA
reception of such telecasts is not what their business models want to
stress. Burning up data minutes seems to be what they would prefer to free
OTA reception.

Each year Comcast takes away more and more channels that I like and replaces
them with crap that's cheap for them to buy. When they dropped Turner
Classic Movies that was the final straw. I decided then to "cut the cord"
and go with OTA, Netflix and the free streaming that comes from Amazon
Prime.

--
Bobby G.

Robert Green wrote:

Show me something like that, but with an internal SATA hard drive
(either built-in or optional).

I've had a number of tunerless media recorders before this that are
capable of supporting internal SATA/PATA drives as well as the USB
externals and I can say unequivocally that external drive support
is far more useful.

A year or so ago I bought a Netgear EVA9000 for $100. It has no tuner,
and it doesn't record (although the chipset inside does have divx or
h264 recording capability). It had no hard drive - I added a 1tb
WD-Green drive for about $65. The box has a nice front-panel door and
drawer for the hard drive - which slides out the front.

I have that box connected to my 36" Sony Wega (flatscreen tube tv, circa
year 2000) and my Denon AVR 3300 receiver (via digital audio link).

What I would love is a box like the Netgear, with ATSC tuner and the
ability to record OTA and anything I feed into the back of the box (NTSC
composite video, for example).

A box without internal hard drive is crap. The EVA9000 has internal
drive AND front and back USB ports. I can connect keyboard or mouse to
this thing.

32 or 64 gb USB thumb drives are too small capacity for set-top
tuner/PVR recording solution. I want a box that can store all my ****
and record stuff too. The ability to stick in a thumb drive to put
stuff on (the internal drive) or pull stuff off (the internal drive) is
always there.

Some hi-res 1920 x 1080 video files require more bandwidth than a lot of
USB thumbdrives are capable of. The USB interface itself of some of
these STB's are pathetically slow.

On Thursday, April 24, 2014 6:08:17 PM UTC-4, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:
On 04/24/14 05:28 pm, Lee B wrote:



- is there really a market for watching TV on a cell phone or tablet?

Plus, th

available antennas in some markets.

The only time I'd be interested would be when I'm sitting in the

basement with the power out during a storm, and I wanted to keep abreast

of the tv broadcast weather reporting.



But my biggest question is:



If people really do want to watch TV on their mobile devices, then why

on earth hasn't the makers of these devices (phones, tablets) responded

years ago by putting ATSC tuners in them SO YOU CAN WATCH LOCAL TV

DIRECTLY OTA WITHOUT USING ANY INTERNET / DATA BANDWITDH ?



It's more than the tuner. You also need a decent antenna - and you're

not going to be able to fit one inside a mobile device.



A number of years ago, I bought one of those walkman types of portable

TVs. Granted, I'd bought it "open box" which may have been a problem,

but I rarely got any decent reception on it, despite living close to the

local networks' combined candelabra tower. And it had a telescoping

antenna that was, I don't know, 8-10" long; I'm not sure that would be

too popular on a phone, although may on a table it wouldn't be too big.

(Actually, I wish I could buy one of those walkman tvs now. It would

come in handy during power outages when I wouldn't have wifi anyhow).



Aereo appears to be an interesting idea, but it only has the same

channels I can get anyhow (still close to that candelabra). If it

carried a few more channels like TNT, I'd be more interested.



TNT isn't an OTA channel, and I think it's only OTA broadcasts that

Aereo is relaying.



I doubt very much whether there is anything to stop you sending signals

from your antenna to a bunch of neighbors by coaxial cable (transmitting

would require a license for a frequency allocated to you), but the

problem seems to be that Aereo is charging for the service, and CBS,

NBC, etc., aren't getting a cut, as they do from the satellite and cable

companies.

Of course there is something stopping you from taking an OTA signal
and then redistributing it for free. The court case with Aero is over
copyrights and violation of copyrights occurs whether you charge for it
or give it away. If you put up an antenna and ran a cable down the
street to 6 houses, unlikely that the networks are going to know about
what you're doing or even do anything if they found out, but from everything
I see, it's exactly the same copyright violation issue that they are
pursuing with regard to Aero. You can't take something that's copyrighted
and redistribute it.






Perce

Home Guy "Home"@Guy. com wrote:

What I would love is a box like the Netgear, with ATSC tuner and the
ability to record OTA and anything I feed into the back of the box (NTSC
composite video, for example).

Dell used to make a box called the Zino with exactly these specs. Mines about 3
or 4 years old now and is just starting to act up on the HDMI interface to the
TV. Has 1 TB harddrive which holds all the OTA stuff I care to record (mostly
football and the Sunday political shows). Runs Windows 7, so no problem with
VPNs or using a web browser to view other stuff. Has a Blueray drive for DVDs.

Looking for a replacement, but short of an Android SoC (yuk) or a fullsize
desktop, it's difficult to find something.

"trader_4" wrote in message
news:e0ff939d-a7bc-4126-b4e1-

stuff snipped

Of course there is something stopping you from taking an OTA signal
and then redistributing it for free. The court case with Aero is over
copyrights and violation of copyrights occurs whether you charge for it
or give it away. If you put up an antenna and ran a cable down the
street to 6 houses, unlikely that the networks are going to know about
what you're doing or even do anything if they found out, but from
everything
I see, it's exactly the same copyright violation issue that they are
pursuing with regard to Aero. You can't take something that's copyrighted
and redistribute it.asts that you tell it to, like a DVR.

There's a lot more to it than that. An important point to remember about
the exorbitant retransmission fees that OTA broadcasters exact from the
cable TV companies is that they do NOT go to the copyright holders, but to
the TV stations. That really muddies the water of copyright infringement
claims because the actual copyright holders are not really in the loop.

When Congress gave broadcasters the choice of compelling the local cable
service to retransmit their signals at no cost, or compelling compensation
in exchange for consent to retransmit, it was regulating commerce and
communications, not copyrights.

There is no unfairness or free-riding here because the public has no
obligation to pay for access to local broadcast signals. Members of the
public are *entitled* to watch and hear any over-the-air broadcast
programming that they are capable of receiving. It is that simple. The
copyright owner has no right to control who may join the audience. This is
a little like the Bundy case in that a smoke-screen's going up meant to
cloud the underlying issue: Broadcasters want money from Aereo like they
get from Comcast and others.

CATV companies *could* have retransmitted broadcast signals without paying
for them, but the Congressional catch was that then they could not *charge*
users for them either. The CATV companies realized it would mean more
profit if they paid broadcasters and charged users for the content. And
charge them they did!

This is part and parcel of broadcasters enjoying the right to use the
*publicly owned* broadcast spectrum. In the Betamax decision, it was
further decided that people had the right to record OTA broadcast for
viewing at a later time. Aereo has compared the installation of a TV aerial
on your roof (that might need a rotor to work well) and the ownership of a
DVR to record from your antenna to leasing that equipment and maintenance
thereof from them.

In the urban canyons where Aereo flourishes it's usually not even possible
to mount an external antenna. If you're on the "shadow side" of a old
building with plaster lathe construction, you don't even get a signal. I
know Kurt takes exception to this concept, but stop and think about it.
Would anyone pay for Aereo if they could get a good OTA signal *without*
paying for it?

Why would Aereo even work as a business model if the people that purchased
their service could just as easily use rabbit ears? Unfortunately it's been
well-established in urban areas that not everyone who is legally entitled to
OTA broadcasts can actually receive them.

http://www.adweek.com/news/technolog...nternet-138283

New York is also logical launch pad for the service, since it solves
over-the-air reception problems inherent to New York's urban canyon
environment.

The question actually revolves around the definition of public and private
performances.

If you buy a DVD of a movie, you have the right to watch it in your home;
that is considered a private performance. You are not allowed to play that
DVD in a theater and charge for tickets; that is considered a public
performance and is a violation of the copyright. Since OTA (Over-the-air)
TV broadcasts are free to air, it means you are entitled to watch it
privately without charge. You are also allowed to record it, say to a VCR,
and watch it later according to the Betamax decision of years ago.

Aereo's argument is that it does not transmit to many people at once. It
transmits to you, individually, from your antenna, through your cloud
service, into your computer for your viewing only.
This, Aereo argues, constitutes a private performance.

You are controlling the content privately as you would from your roof
antenna. Aereo merely leases an antenna and a DVR to you. It's then both an
equipment leasing company and a cloud storage service. Neither of those
things are illegal to operate. This is why cloud-centric companies have
filed amicus briefs on behalf of Aereo. They could be profoundly affected
by a negative SC decision.

Aereo argues there is no difference between its service and having your own
antenna to watch free TV. On its side are previous court rulings between
Cartoon Network and Cablevision. These cases established that playing
individual recordings of television (via DVR or cloud storage) was a
private, not a public, performance. This distinction is why the lower
courts have affirmed Aereo's business model.

Of course, litigants in that case were paying a license fee to transmit
content which Aereo does not pay. That's why OTA broadcasters are hopping
mad. They want what cable companies pay them from Aereo. But again,
there's a difference. Broadcasters can (and have) used some very bitter
blackouts to force CATV companies to pay them.

That's not so easy to do with Aereo's one antenna per viewer without
blocking out all the non-Aereo users as well. They have far less leverage
to compel Aereo to pay the fees they charge CATV companies. That's because
they can't blackout the last episode of "Breaking Bad" or a championship
tournament (as they've done in the past) to extort larger fees.

On Aereo's side is the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. That's
the second-highest federal court in the country and it ruled 2-1 in favor of
Aereo, deciding the company's offerings were essentially an off-site DVR and
should not be considered public performance.

The dissenting judges in Utah and at the 2nd USCA2ndC believe, as you do,
that Aereo is commercially retransmitting these performances on a wide
scale. They believe whether Aereo uses one or thousands of antennas that
Aereo is retransmitting copyrighted programs to the public.

While analysts are trying hard to predict an eventual unfavorable decision
based on the hard questions the Supremes have been asking, that's risky.
They've been very hard on the side that eventually prevails in any number of
past cases, so it's just fortune telling to call the case this soon.
Besides, at almost every step in Aereo's existence, the pundits were saying
that they would never win any of the lower courts cases that they eventually
did, one by one. I'd like to see them win just to see if ABC, etc. will
really abandon OTA broadcasting as a result. Betcha they won't! (-: If I
were them, I'd be very wary of tell the Supremes they would cut their noses
off to spite their faces if they are rules against.

It's a fascinating case because it draws on so many precedents and quirks in
Federal law. I think that in the end, the broadcasters will end up reaching
more local viewers through Aereo than they could before. That means they'll
be able to claim higher viewership and will be able to charge more for ads.
Once they see those numbers on paper, they'll retract their horns and
grudingly accept the higher ad rates. (-:

--
Bobby G.

On Sunday, April 27, 2014 7:51:35 AM UTC-4, Robert Green wrote:
"trader_4" wrote in message

news:e0ff939d-a7bc-4126-b4e1-



stuff snipped



Of course there is something stopping you from taking an OTA signal

and then redistributing it for free. The court case with Aero is over

copyrights and violation of copyrights occurs whether you charge for it

or give it away. If you put up an antenna and ran a cable down the

street to 6 houses, unlikely that the networks are going to know about

what you're doing or even do anything if they found out, but from

everything

I see, it's exactly the same copyright violation issue that they are

pursuing with regard to Aero. You can't take something that's copyrighted

and redistribute it.asts that you tell it to, like a DVR.



There's a lot more to it than that. An important point to remember about

the exorbitant retransmission fees that OTA broadcasters exact from the

cable TV companies is that they do NOT go to the copyright holders, but to

the TV stations. That really muddies the water of copyright infringement

claims because the actual copyright holders are not really in the loop.



When Congress gave broadcasters the choice of compelling the local cable

service to retransmit their signals at no cost, or compelling compensation

in exchange for consent to retransmit, it was regulating commerce and

communications, not copyrights.



There is no unfairness or free-riding here because the public has no

obligation to pay for access to local broadcast signals. Members of the

public are *entitled* to watch and hear any over-the-air broadcast

programming that they are capable of receiving. It is that simple. The

copyright owner has no right to control who may join the audience. This is

a little like the Bundy case in that a smoke-screen's going up meant to

cloud the underlying issue: Broadcasters want money from Aereo like they

get from Comcast and others.



CATV companies *could* have retransmitted broadcast signals without paying

for them, but the Congressional catch was that then they could not *charge*

users for them either. The CATV companies realized it would mean more

profit if they paid broadcasters and charged users for the content. And

charge them they did!



This is part and parcel of broadcasters enjoying the right to use the

*publicly owned* broadcast spectrum. In the Betamax decision, it was

further decided that people had the right to record OTA broadcast for

viewing at a later time. Aereo has compared the installation of a TV aerial

on your roof (that might need a rotor to work well) and the ownership of a

DVR to record from your antenna to leasing that equipment and maintenance

thereof from them.



In the urban canyons where Aereo flourishes it's usually not even possible

to mount an external antenna. If you're on the "shadow side" of a old

building with plaster lathe construction, you don't even get a signal. I

know Kurt takes exception to this concept, but stop and think about it.

Would anyone pay for Aereo if they could get a good OTA signal *without*

paying for it?



Because when someone is sitting in Starbucks, in a stadium, or at the
office with their cell phone or tablet, they don't have a TV and antenna
are some examples.




Why would Aereo even work as a business model if the people that purchased

their service could just as easily use rabbit ears?

See above.


Unfortunately it's been

well-established in urban areas that not everyone who is legally entitled to

OTA broadcasts can actually receive them.



http://www.adweek.com/news/technolog...nternet-138283



New York is also logical launch pad for the service, since it solves

over-the-air reception problems inherent to New York's urban canyon

environment.



The question actually revolves around the definition of public and private

performances.



Whatever the issue ultimately revolves around, there are indeed legal
issues that say you can't receive material OTA then put it on a cable and
send it off to other folks. That was my point. The poster claimed one
could do that.



If you buy a DVD of a movie, you have the right to watch it in your home;

that is considered a private performance. You are not allowed to play that

DVD in a theater and charge for tickets; that is considered a public

performance and is a violation of the copyright. Since OTA (Over-the-air)

TV broadcasts are free to air, it means you are entitled to watch it

privately without charge. You are also allowed to record it, say to a VCR,

and watch it later according to the Betamax decision of years ago.



Aereo's argument is that it does not transmit to many people at once. It

transmits to you, individually, from your antenna, through your cloud

service, into your computer for your viewing only.

This, Aereo argues, constitutes a private performance.



You are controlling the content privately as you would from your roof

antenna. Aereo merely leases an antenna and a DVR to you. It's then both an

equipment leasing company and a cloud storage service. Neither of those

things are illegal to operate. This is why cloud-centric companies have

filed amicus briefs on behalf of Aereo. They could be profoundly affected

by a negative SC decision.



Aereo argues there is no difference between its service and having your own

antenna to watch free TV. On its side are previous court rulings between

Cartoon Network and Cablevision. These cases established that playing

individual recordings of television (via DVR or cloud storage) was a

private, not a public, performance. This distinction is why the lower

courts have affirmed Aereo's business model.



Of course, litigants in that case were paying a license fee to transmit

content which Aereo does not pay. That's why OTA broadcasters are hopping

mad. They want what cable companies pay them from Aereo. But again,

there's a difference. Broadcasters can (and have) used some very bitter

blackouts to force CATV companies to pay them.



That's not so easy to do with Aereo's one antenna per viewer without

blocking out all the non-Aereo users as well. They have far less leverage

to compel Aereo to pay the fees they charge CATV companies. That's because

they can't blackout the last episode of "Breaking Bad" or a championship

tournament (as they've done in the past) to extort larger fees.



On Aereo's side is the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. That's

the second-highest federal court in the country and it ruled 2-1 in favor of

Aereo, deciding the company's offerings were essentially an off-site DVR and

should not be considered public performance.



The dissenting judges in Utah and at the 2nd USCA2ndC believe, as you do,

that Aereo is commercially retransmitting these performances on a wide

scale. They believe whether Aereo uses one or thousands of antennas that

Aereo is retransmitting copyrighted programs to the public.



Actually, I don't have a dog in this fight. My point was only that there
is something stopping one from putting up an antenna, receiving broadcast
TV and retransmitting it to other people's homes.



While analysts are trying hard to predict an eventual unfavorable decision

based on the hard questions the Supremes have been asking, that's risky.

They've been very hard on the side that eventually prevails in any number of

past cases, so it's just fortune telling to call the case this soon.

Besides, at almost every step in Aereo's existence, the pundits were saying

that they would never win any of the lower courts cases that they eventually

did, one by one. I'd like to see them win just to see if ABC, etc. will

really abandon OTA broadcasting as a result. Betcha they won't! (-: If I

were them, I'd be very wary of tell the Supremes they would cut their noses

off to spite their faces if they are rules against.



It's a fascinating case because it draws on so many precedents and quirks in

Federal law. I think that in the end, the broadcasters will end up reaching

more local viewers through Aereo than they could before. That means they'll

be able to claim higher viewership and will be able to charge more for ads.

Once they see those numbers on paper, they'll retract their horns and

grudingly accept the higher ad rates. (-:



--

Bobby G.

The same more viewers equals more ad revenue applies to OTA being
retransmitted on cable. Yet the broadcasters managed to get them to
pay......

On Thursday, April 24, 2014 8:10:56 PM UTC-4, Home Guy wrote:
Moe DeLoughan wrote:



why on earth hasn't the makers of these devices (phones, tablets)

responded years ago by putting ATSC tuners in them SO YOU CAN

WATCH LOCAL TV DIRECTLY OTA WITHOUT USING ANY INTERNET / DATA

BANDWITDH ?



It's more than the tuner. You also need a decent antenna -

and you're not going to be able to fit one inside a mobile

device.



Total hogwash.



For one thing, the 700 mhz band was once used by UHF channels 53 through

69. All TV stations in north america that were using those channels got

kicked off them. The 700 mhz band has many excellent reception

qualities for small devices with limited antenna space. It doesn't get

that much worse for lower-freqency channels (like 20 through 52).



The VHF channels would be more problematic, but many TV stations have

abandoned them in favor of UHF.



Combine that with the fact that your average TV transmitting is pumping

out 10's of kwatt (at minimum) to several hundred thousand watts of RF

power, and digital signals mean you either get a solid picture - or you

don't, means that your argument has just been cut to horse ****.



Finally, there ARE cell phones in asia with built-in ATSC tuners.



If true, that supports my suggestion that one reason you may not see
them here is that the cell phone carriers here don't want it.



There are many more different types of consumer electronics products in

asia that are not seen in the US market, like digital versions of the

good-old VCR (not talking about cable boxes with hard drives either).

What exactly are you talking about? We have DVR's here in the good old
USA that are not cable boxes. I have one. Are you talking about Blu Ray recorders? You can buy those too.

With the way the corporation-funded Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United, I'm pretty sure they'll rule in favor of Areo.

And if that leads to OTA/antenna broadcasts being yanked, there just won't be anymore TV in this household.

bob haller wrote: "Really OTA is obsolete, its used by about 8% of the population many of which have cable or sat. at the time of digital conversion OTA should of been killed.

TV bandwidth is more useful for cell phones

Cable and sat would be happy to pick up more subscribers, at say 10 bucks a pop for lifeline service.

Ending OTA would save a lot of electricity...

tv stations could resell their bandwidth for cell. "

Question: Do you work for Aereo?

Robert Green wrote:

There's a lot more to it than that. An important point to remember
about the exorbitant retransmission fees that OTA broadcasters exact
from the cable TV companies...

Does anyone happen to know just how much those fees are, on a
per-customer basis?

In the urban canyons where Aereo flourishes

I don't think it's possible to know what fraction of Aereo's customer
live in OTA-challenged circumstances.

It would also involve speculating to what extent these customers watch
Aereo on stationary TV's (which is a challenge in itself for the vast
majority of people) vs on a tablet or phone somewhere else (commuting to
work? In a park? At work? In a restaurant or bar?).

We would have to see a breakdown of the various use-cases for how and
where these people are using aereo.

Would anyone pay for Aereo if they could get a good OTA signal
*without* paying for it?

For the average person I would say yes. Many people either do not know
or have long forgotten that terrestrial TV broadcasting was (and still
us) commonplace and everpresent.

Why would Aereo even work as a business model if the people that
purchased their service could just as easily use rabbit ears?
Unfortunately it's been well-established in urban areas that not
everyone who is legally entitled to OTA broadcasts can actually
receive them.

Ok, you're clearly operating under some old impressions here.

For one, multipath distortion did cause problems for "urban canyon"
reception, particularly on VHF channels. But also remember that VHF and
UHF frequencies penetrate much further into sold materials vs cell-phone
frequencies. The 700 mhz spectrum (formerly used by UHF channels 53
through 69) which is now allocated to new cellular service promises a
new era in trouble-free reception for portable devices.

Also note that many TV stations have abandoned VHF channels
(particularly VHF-lo) and have gone to UHF.

The claim that a cell phone needs a telescoping whip antenna to receive
OTA TV can be completely trashed if you simply don't even try tuning in
the VHF spectrum at all, or simply optimize the internal antenna for UHF
only and accept spotty VHF performance (which isin't really a hardship
because as just mentioned the vast majority of TV is now using UHF
channels).

Second, we're talking digital ATSC signals, for which you can receive a
crystal-clear picture with surprisingly low signal levels and multipath
distortion. So stop comparing the receive-ability of analog TV a decade
ago in hi-rise urban appartment buildings with what is possible today's
digital signal format.

The 800 lb gorilla in the room is still asking why even just a few
models of cell phones made today (and available in north america) does
not have the ability to receive these signals.

===============
http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=1543

Sanyo Shows Off Cell Phone With Integrated Television Tuner
Saturday, August 09, 2003

For the second time in almost as many weeks, a Japanese company has been
showing off a handheld device with built-in television tuner. This one
is a phone with TV, not a PDA like that last one, but it still looks
very interesting and promises to open more doors like this for PDAs
going forward.

The Sanyo Electric used 2.2 inch organic EL display, the portable
telephone of terrestrial digital television broadcasting correspondence
was made on an experimental basis. Besides the fact that you use the
tip/chip of new development and can do television viewing of 90 parts,
video recording of 30 parts is possible inside. The substance
corresponds to CDMA2000 1x.
================

Yes, that was in 2003.

You want something more recent?

================
Samsung Galaxy S II TV is an Android smartphone with built-in television
receiver

Posted: 15 Aug 2013,

Despite the name, the Samsung Galaxy S II TV has almost nothing to do
with the company's former flagship device. It is a brand new Android
smartphone that comes with a digital TV receiver and a built-in
retractable antenna. With support for the ISDB-T broadcasting standard,
the handset lets its user enjoy live television, displayed on the
4-inch, 800x480 pixel screen. Further specs include a 1GHz dual-core
processor, main camera of 5 megapixels, 4GB of storage, microSD card
slot, and a 1500mAh battery. Android 4.2.2 is included out of the box.

Clearly, the Samsung Galaxy S II TV is an interesting device despite its
mid-range hardware specifications. Too bad that we might not lay our
hands on it anytime soon as we're not expecting this device to be
launched globally. Samsung is planning on marketing the Galaxy S II TV
in Brazil where it will come in a dual-SIM flavor.

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Samsu...ceiver_id46432
================

From what I've read, they've been able to watch OTA TV on cell phones in
Japan and South Korea since 2005 or 2006 and China (not sure starting
when).

And you well know that many people in these asian countries live in
hyper-canyonized cities.

trader_4 wrote:

There are many more different types of consumer electronics
products in asia that are not seen in the US market, like digital
versions of the good-old VCR (not talking about cable boxes with
hard drives either).

What exactly are you talking about? We have DVR's here in the good
old USA that are not cable boxes. I have one.

Show me a DVR sold by a big-box retailer that is a 100% digital
equivalent to the old analog NTSC vcr.

By that, I mean it has:

- ATSC tuner, and possibly clear-QAM tuner
- tuner input (F-connector) for CATV cable or antenna
- component, svideo, rca (composite) video and hdmi output
(so the box can function as a "digital convertor box")
- can record to internal hard drive what you've tuned into,
regardless if it's a 720 or 1080 video signal
- can retreive any channel schedule information
- programmable (scheduled) recording
- auxilliary back-panel inputs for recording other signals fed
into the box (RCA, S-Video, AND hdmi)

And what it should have (that wasn't around in the VCR days):

- RJ45 ethernet jack for connecting the device to your home LAN
for network accessibility on other devices to stream recorded
content from internal hard drive or outright copy files
between devices, configure a recording schedule or look up
a channel guide, watch live tv, etc.

- wifi radio to perform any of the above activities mentioned
for hard-wired ethernet, to the extent that wifi is capable
of.

On Sunday, April 27, 2014 8:54:23 AM UTC-4, wrote:
bob haller wrote: "Really OTA is obsolete, its used by about 8% of the population many of which have cable or sat. at the time of digital conversion OTA should of been killed.



TV bandwidth is more useful for cell phones



Cable and sat would be happy to pick up more subscribers, at say 10 bucks a pop for lifeline service.



Ending OTA would save a lot of electricity...



tv stations could resell their bandwidth for cell. "



Question: Do you work for Aereo?

no just interested in the industry. I repair machines for a living

bob haller wrote: "- show quoted text -
no just interested in the industry. I repair machines for a living "

Great. And I happen to be the proad owner of a rooftop antenna picking up my ATSC that way and loving it.

On Sunday, April 27, 2014 8:52:56 AM UTC-4, wrote:
With the way the corporation-funded Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United, I'm pretty sure they'll rule in favor of Areo.



Idiot. If you're going to play the alleged corporate power over the SC card,
at least try to do it right. Who is more powerful? Little ****-ant Aero or
the major broadcasters and networks?



And if that leads to OTA/antenna broadcasts being yanked, there just won't be anymore TV in this household.

You're obviously just watching cartoons anyway.

"trader_4" wrote in message
news:0fef2e7e-c26d-45fb-813c-

stuff snipped

The same more viewers equals more ad revenue applies to OTA being
retransmitted on cable. Yet the broadcasters managed to get them to
pay......

They paid because the physical arrangement of system allows broadcasters to
"pull the plug" and black-out broadcasts in a way they can't with Aereo.

http://articles.philly.com/2014-01-0...s-similar-fees

The American Television Alliance says content companies that own
broadcast-TV stations have forced the pay-TV industry into higher
retransmission fees by withholding TV channels during carriage negotiations.
Periodically, the content companies - CBS, Walt Disney Co. (which owns ABC),
NBCUniversal, and Fox - negotiate new carriage agreements to distribute
their entertainment on pay-TV systems.
When TV channels go dark on one pay-TV service, subscribers tend to drop
that service for a competing one, making blackouts an effective negotiating
tactic. Pay-TV companies pay the retransmission fees to avoid the bad
publicity and subscriber drain, executives and analysts say.

In 2013, there were 127 such blackouts, the American Television Alliance
says; there were 51 nationwide in 2011, 91 in 2012.

"It's obvious that the retransmission consent system is broken," said Brian
Frederick, spokesman for the alliance.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/23/bu...ted=all&src=pm

sums up how this all got started:

The two sides' positions can be summed up this way: Broadcast stations say
they provide something of value to cable operators and should be compensated
on a per-subscriber basis, the same way CNN and MTV are. Cable companies
argue that they and their subscribers should not have to pay for a signal
that households with antennas can receive free.

Add Congress to the mix: They pushed out a "bewildering" and conflicting
500 page law. While oddly detailed in some respects, it leaves a lot to
interpretation. That's precisely why Aereo has prevailed often enough in
court to raise it to the Supremes. It's about as gnarly an issue as net
neutrality and now that ISP's can broker deals for "fast lane" access things
are going to get very litigious in that arena, too.

I can take my tablet with me and watch anything I recorded on the Mediasonic
PVR wherever I am. That's very much like Aereo is doing, except the PVR is
located in their server farm. A ruling against Aereo could prohibit that,
could prohibit devices like the Slingbox and more.

Unlike Netflix streaming that sends one copy to 1,000s, Aereo sends your
copy to you and you alone. I believe that's what this case will eventually
turn on. The private performance clauses of the applicable communications
laws. Hell, they could even decide that the current "retransmission fee"
system for public broadcasts is unconstitutional. You never know with the
Roberts' Court. (-:

This is one of the most technically complex cases I've ever seen the SC deal
with and I just *know* they are going to step on their dicks or get their
tits caught in the wringer. They just don't do technology very well. When
I saw how badly they got suckered by Microsoft claiming they just couldn't
break out IE from Windows - it was technically impossible, their experts
said - I knew they were very out of their league in high tech cases.

The nuances of this case and the wildy divergent rulings that have followed
it since birth literally scream "this is a pivot point" where things as we
know them will probably change after the SC ruling. The court is going to
have to depend on sifting through the huge number of amicus briefs to
understand the implications their ruling may have. It will all probably
turn on something like "this is a tax, not a mandate" or "money equals
speech" or that you can safely dispose of the controlling "well-trained
militia" clause of the 2nd amendment and no one will notice. (-:

The Roberts Court is very much destined to go down in history for inventing
for the right what the Warren (and other) Courts did for the left. Is there
*really* a right to abortions in the Constitution? Does ignorance of the
law mandate the police educate you about your rights before you blab and
incriminate yourself? (Miranda) I don't expect many of the very
controversial 5/4 cases decided under Roberts will survive wholly unscathed
in the future. But as my J-prof said "the pendulum swings."

What troubles me is that if they rule against Aereo, then Amazon's Cloud
music player and lots of other sites could be next because *they* stream
copies of copyrighted material. That example illustrates again why this is
a "public v. private performance" case because the two types of performances
are treated so differently by the law. It's the reason for the thousands of
tiny antennas Aereo chose to use - to reinforce the concept that it's
private conduit from the OTA tower to the end user, not a mass one like
CATV.

Here are just *some* of the players that have dogs in this hunt and are on
Aereo's side:

Brief of Dish Network L.L.C. and Echostar Technologies L.L.C. as Amici
Curiae in Support of Aereo(April 2, 2014)
a.. Brief of the American Cable Association in Support of Aereo (April 2,
2014)
b.. Brief of Competition Law Professors, Southwestern Law Student Andrew
Pletcher, and Professor Michael M. Epstein, in Association with the Amicus
Project At Southwestern Law School, as Amici Curiae in Support of
Aereo(April 2, 2014)
c.. Brief of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, the
Consumer Electronics Association, and Engine Advocacy in Support of
Aereo(April 2, 2014)
d.. Brief of Small and Independent Broadcasters in Support of Aereo(April
2, 2014)
e.. Brief of Amici Curiae of Law Professors and Scholars in Support of
Aereo(April 2, 2014)
f.. Brief of the Consumer Federation of America and the Consumers Union in
Support of Aereo(April 2, 2014)
g.. Brief of Computer & Communications Industry Association and Mozilla
Corporation as Amici Curiae in Support of Aereo(April 2, 2014)
h.. Brief of 36 Intellectual Property and Copyright Law Professors as
Amici Curiae in Support of Aereo(April 2, 2014)
i.. The Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union in Support of
Aereo (Second Circuit)(November 13, 2012)
j.. Intellectual Property and Copyright Law Professors in Support of Aereo
Amicus Brief (Second Circuit)(October 26, 2012)
k.. Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, and the Consumer
Electronics Association Amicus Brief in Support of Aereo (Second Circuit)
(October 26, 2012)
l.. CCIA & Internet Association Amicus Brief in Support of Affirmance
(Second Circuit)(October 25, 2012)
m.. Electronic Frontier Foundation & Public Knowledge Amicus Brief
(District Court)(May 23, 2012)
n.. NetCoalition and CCIA Amicus Brief (District Court)(May 22, 2012)
(You can read each of the briefs at http://www.protectmyantenna.org/ - it's
fascinating stuff)

--
Bobby G.

"Home Guy" "Home"@Guy. com wrote in message
...
Robert Green wrote:

Why would Aereo even work as a business model if the people that
purchased their service could just as easily use rabbit ears?
Unfortunately it's been well-established in urban areas that not
everyone who is legally entitled to OTA broadcasts can actually
receive them.

Ok, you're clearly operating under some old impressions here.

Nope. I am reporting the experience of living on a hillside in a pretty
densely packed urban area. I use the antennas that stick to the windows on
my TV's throughout the house. On the north side I can get *some* Baltimore
stations, but none on the south side. On the south side I can get many
Virginia stations I can't get on the north side. IOW, each TV's channel
list is substantially different depending on which side of the house the
aerial for that TV is located. Now, with all the Mediasonic boxes I just
bought, I will be able to run that same test with identical tuners that have
signal level meters built-in to eliminate any possible tuner sensitivity
differences.

This is in a fairly residential area with out many tall buildings. The
situation gets far worse if you're in a tall condo along Mass. Ave in DC
where my friend lives. A trip to any of the TV newsgroups or forums will
reveal just how many people are in the same boat with "rabbit ears" in urban
areas. Aereo specifically targeted cities with known reception issues.
Perhaps Aereo has done surveys to determine why people sign up - I haven't
found any so far - but I steadfastly believe that many do sign up because
their rabbit ears suck and they don't have access to a rooftop or community
antenna.

I've seen enough pixelated displays to know that digital TV is in some ways
worse than analog. An analog picture degrades in ways that are still
viewable in many cases. You just have to put up with ghosts or snow. DTV?
Pixelation is the step before dropouts. I live near an airport. I can
track planes by the way DTV signal on channel 20 breaks up. With analog, a
jet overhead would cause ghosting but the audio remained clear. Now the
picture pixelates and then disappears entirely when the plane passes
overhead. And the audio goes with it. Aereo would prevent that sort of
stuff from happening for me and a lot of other users with set-top aerials.

FWIW, I'll bet that Aereo knows what devices it's streaming to - whether
mobile or home.

--
Bobby G.

On Sunday, April 27, 2014 11:41:53 AM UTC-4, wrote:
bob haller wrote: "- show quoted text -

no just interested in the industry. I repair machines for a living "



Great. And I happen to be the proad owner of a rooftop antenna picking up my ATSC that way and loving it.

I have a yagi rooftop antenna witha rotor. am not using it currently...

The issue is this, we need internet access and the most affordable is comcast.

I would drop tv but it saves very little money....

we are looking at internet alternatives, but so far no really good deals...

the antenna works very good

"Lee B" wrote in message
...

stuff snipped

Truthfully, I'd be happy if I could just watch those
few cable stations online for a small fee, but for now they only allow
online viewing if you can prove you subscribe to a participating
cable/sat company.

HBO discovered that more people were downloading "Game of Thrones" than
there should be which they attributed to a great deal of "password sharing"
among HBO subscribers and their friends.

For every tall wall, there's a taller ladder.

--
Bobby G.

"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
"Robert Green" wrote:
stuff snipped

That's not what I read. They are targeting people who *should* be in
the
signal area but because of the "urban canyon" effect can't receive a
good
signal where they live. I'm suburban and it's one reason I am keeping
cable
a little while longer. I am on the side of a hill and TV stations on
the
other side of the hill just don't come in well. That's why Aereo is big
in
cities like NYC that can have close to zero reception in areas blocked
by
very tall buildings.

So, then it is serving as a CATV or cable system, just w/o the the
cable. Sorta like charging for ethernet but not for wifi.

It really *isn't* serving as a cable system in some very important legal
ways. For one, every user has his own antenna, his own DVR and his own copy
of what was recorded. That differs substantially (legally speaking) from a
CATV system (particularly their DVR components). The CATV systems take one
copy of say "House of Cards" and stream in to 1,000's of people. Aereo
makes a distinct and separate copy of anything that a user/viewer selects.
If 100 Aereo users record "The Big Bang Theory" then there will be 100
distinct "private" copies of that show stored on Aereo's servers:

http://www.cnet.com/news/inside-the-...s-legal-hoops/

The above article has some fascinating photos of an Aereo "server farm" and
tries to explain how various clauses of the laws concerning retransmission
apply. They also reiterate what I've been saying all along:

In the transition to fully digital broadcast signals in 2009, the Federal
Communications Commission drew up maps that indicated where, if consumers
followed the necessary steps, a proper antenna above a dwelling should be
able to pick up TV broadcasts. As Kanojia and Lipowski made their own map of
New York's broadcast signals, they found big holes. - - - It's striking to
me," Lipowski said, describing missing signals at many places around the
city, no more than a few miles from the current broadcast center on the
Empire State Building. "You would not get the channels that the FCC said you
should be able to receive. ... It was just gone, you could no longer receive
television signals, you had to do something different. That's not
fair." - - - Lipowski and Kanojia found their signal sweet spot at the
Brooklyn building, a location with direct line of sight with the Empire
State Building and One World Trade Center, which will become NYC's
broadcasting tower next year.

So despite what some people are saying here, there are some serious "dead
spots" in large cities that mean people entitled to receive OTA for free
can't do so. Aereo remedies that situation. The lower courts and the
Federal Court of Appeals have both agreed with that assessment.

The article below is one of the best of dozens I've read when it comes to
explaining why Aereo has prevailed in most cases leading up to the current
one before the Supremes:

http://www.cnet.com/news/why-the-aer...tough-to-call/

Aereo's legal argument relies heavily on a case that cable provider
Cablevision won over the media companies in 2008, allowing it to offer
network DVR, the same cloud-based system that Aereo is using to record,
store and deliver over-the-air broadcasts. The Supreme Court declined to
hear an appeal of the Cablevision case the following year, and these
cloud-based services have been trucking along ever since.

The CNET article rightly points out that it's the consumer that's been
paying the hefty fees that broadcasters have extracted from the CATV
companies:

Aereo charges $8 a month for its cheapest package -- less than half the
$20.55 average price for a basic pay-TV service package in 2012, and far
below the $61.63 price for the package tier most people buy, according to
the Federal Communications Commission. . . . At first glance, Aereo looks
similar to a cable or satellite company. Yet Aereo doesn't pay, and lower
courts have largely supported its argument that it shouldn't have to. The
trick is this: Aereo specifically developed its technology to enable private
performances, the kind that are free of copyright concerns. Every customer
has an individual tiny antenna that he or she controls, and every antenna
makes a dedicated recording of the programming. By that rationale, Aereo
isn't infringing because these aren't public performances.

And they are OTA. Even the more aggressive FCC of today

That's pretty funny considering how they've rolled over like an industry
lapdog concerning net neutrality.

hasn't pretended that that extends to having people take the signal and
retransmit and get paid for it w/o cutting in the others. The signal is
free as originally and completely intended, OTA.

However, if the intention of Congress was that everyone should be able to
receive free OTA, the physics of the matter are entirely different. I've
read that Aereo does not stream content beyond the area normally reached by
OTA's broadcast towers, nor do they permit users to stream the content
they've recorded outside that area. They serve only the area that OTA is
meant to serve but for technical reasons often can't.

Essentially, they are providing a conduit for the signal to people who can't
receive it. They're not cutting out the advertising that supports the
broadcast OTA model, either. That's why lower courts have said these are
private performances that allow users to exercise their rights to receive
free OTA broadcasts even though they might not be able to because their
location precludes receiving the free signal. Aereo enables them to receive
what Congress decided was their right to receive even though geographic
circumstance did not allow it.

The networks allege that Aereo's technology is designed simply to
evade copyright law (and more importantly to the TV broadcasters) and
the
enormous retransmission fees that cable companies pay them. Even though
OTA
content has been free, all along, to most anyone with a TV.

And still is OTA. It has never been free for cable people, so why
shouldn't the TV people get a cut. Those who don't want to pay for it,
can still get it for free OTA.

But that's the rub. You keep saying that they can "still get it for free"
but that's simply not the case. If they live in a "shadow zone" they can't
receive the OTA broadcasts that they are entitled to. Aereo uses technology
to remedy that situation. Congress allowed broadcasters the right to demand
fees because CATV is a one-to-many operation, and thus a public performance.
They also wanted to insure the health of the OTA industry by encouraging
CATV operators to retransmit local TV channels.

Aereo has been quite scrupulous in maintaining the private performance
model, hence if 1,000 Aereo subscribers have recorded "American Idolator"
g then Aereo creates 1,000 individual copies of that show whereas Comcast
will retransmit from a single copy. That's an *extremely* important legal
nuance as it pertains to existing communications law.

Remember, the copyright holder is out of this loop. They don't make an
extra dime, even if Aereo is eventually compelled to pay retransmission
fees. That's why this is a commerce and not a copyright case. The
copyright holder is barely considered in all of this. Essentially
broadcasters want ti have their cake and be able to eat it too. They want
to use the public airwaves but still be able to charge fees even considering
the enormous value of free RF spectrum. I say, too bad, so sad. I don't
want to pay more fees. Go pound sand, ABC et. al. or bribe Congress once
again to change the law in your favor. Good luck with that considering the
current "do nothing" Congress.

The TV people only break even.

Are you *sure* about that? There have been some pretty big numbers
thrown
around the retransmission fees that locals have been able to squeeze
out
of cable companies for retransmission. This case is about those fees
and
not really about much else. Why would cable companies still keep paying
them if Aereo makes that content available for far less? If the
broadcasters aren't making enough money it *could* be because they've
upset
their own episodic TV model for cheap, reality shows and ten different
versions of "Dancing with American Idolator in the Shark Tank with the
Voice" or whatever.

You were talking about how TV stations could get more money because of
the increased eyeballs through Aereo. But this was just a movement of
the same eyeballs from one form of delivery to another. It was the
number of people (and thus advertising revenue) that would stay the
same. That I am sure about.

I am equally sure you're wrong. I would invite you to prove your contention
because it runs counter to the dozens of articles I've read concerning the
matter. It's pretty well known to urban dwellers like me that big cities
like New York have a very large number of "dead spots" where OTA broadcasts
simply aren't accessible. A citation or two would be nice. (-:

In my location the DTV channel list on the north facing TV's (with "paddle"
antennas that mount on windows) is substantially different than the channel
lists on the south facing or west or east facing antennas.

Remind me again, what large city do you and HomeGuy live in that makes you
so sure that everyone in those cities has perfect reception? (-: I've
lived in NYC and Washington, DC and I can assure you, reception of even DTV
signals is a hit or miss proposition depending on your location and the type
of aerial you're able to use. It's the reason I still pay $16 a month to
Comcast for basic cable. I just can't bring in the large number of local
OTA channels that Congress says I should be able to using an aerial.
Therefore I subscribe to basic cable but I'd much rather have Aereo and it's
built it DVR for $8 a month. If the retransmission fees went to copyright
holders, I might feel different but they don't.

You don't have to remember very far back to when the TV industry was
apoplectic about the Beta-max and were proclaiming it was the end of
broadcast TV, just as they're whining now about Aereo. Yet the tape and
DVD
aftermarket made them more money in the long run than retransmission
fees
and advertising revenue.

I think you are talking two different things here. The local
stations, which is what we are talking about here, don't have any access
to the aftermarket.

Don't you agree the OTA model is funded by advertising? And that the more
people that see a broadcast, the better for both the station and its
advertiser? If Aereo brings in local viewers who would not be able to see
the OTA signal, isn't that good for them? So why are they whining so much?
It's simply because they'd like to get some of those hefty retransmission
fees from Aereo, too. And then Aereo would have to raise their rates to
customers to pay them. I don't want to pay anymore for cable. We're a
laughing stock compared to the rest of the world in what we pay for CATV and
internet access and I am tired of getting gouged by monopolistic CATV and
ISP companies

http://oti.newamerica.net/publicatio...nectivity_2013

The chart midway down the page shows how badly Americans are being screwed.
For the similar services (the popular three service bundle) you'd pay

$14.52 in Seoul
$29.96 in Zurich
$33.52 in Berlin
$34.87 in Paris and a whopping
$112.50 in Washington, DC.

That's just outrageous. It's the power of monopoly/duoply in a country
that's basically abandoned regulating monopolistic business enterprises.
It's pretty damn obvious that Joe Consumer takes it in the shorts as a
result.

This is from the amicus brief of Consumer's Union and CFA:

http://www.protectmyantenna.org/pdf/...Federation.pdf

Cable and satellite services assert that they offer consumers local
broadcast programming at affordable rates, but these packages do not offer a
single additional feature beyond the local programming itself. Consumers
with these "basic service" packages pay low rates mandated by statute, but
do not have the option to pay a reasonable additional charge to obtain only
the time- and placeshifting technology that Aereo provides. Instead,
consumers are forced into costly higher-tier "bundles" of programming and
services in order to obtain subscription packages with the other major
television providers that include some Aereo-like features cost between
$45.99 and $85.89 per month.

(There's a reason Comcast is one of the most profitable but lowest customer
rated businesses in America. They have a virtual monopoly in most of the
areas they serve. Isn't it odd how in areas served by both FIOS and Comcast
the bundles cost *exactly* the same?)

These prices stand in stark contrast to the $8 per month that Aereo
charges for its choice enabling technology. Consumers should not be forced
to pay inflated costs for channels they do not want in order to use
innovative technologies. Nor are the potential benefits of Aereo's
technology restricted to the individual consumers who choose to subscribe.
The technology also has the potential to benefit broadcasters by making
their programming more attractive by empowering consumers to manage it on
their own terms. This change could dramatically increase the net viewership
of OTA broadcasts. Broadcasters would be able to reach viewers they might
not otherwise due to the Aereo technology's time-shifting capabilities.

Why would they want to actually provide a service when the law gives them a
gravy train that's powered by higher costs to consumers? What a deal for
the broadcasters! I'd like to get me some of that free money! Remember
when CATV showed very few commercials? Now, not only do we get to pay
higher and higher rates each year, we get less and less content and more and
more advertising. That's just not fair but because CATV's are basically
monopolies, there's little anyone can do about it.

The FCC has noted that horizontal competition within the television market
is nearly nonexistent. See Annual Assessment of Competition, supra note 21,
at 10512 ("As a general rule, the geographic footprint of a cable [provider]
rarely overlaps the geographic footprint of another cable [provider]. As
such, cable [providers] rarely compete with one another for the same video
subscriber. The situation is similar for telephone [providers].").

I, for one, support Aereo because I am tired of getting reamed year after
year by Comcast who ups the rate and decreases the number of *good* channels
every year. What really ****es me off is that the DoJ seems to be seriously
considering allowing Comcast and Time-Warner to merge. That's just what
America needs, fewer competitive choices in an already uncompetitve market.
NOT!!!

Now the Cable guys
(initially anyway) had such an argument because they would often pick
up
the signal in an area that was either not well covered or where the
signal was spotty (thus cable originally being Community ANTENNA
Television or CATV).

Which is exactly what Aereo is doing, without paying fees that the TV
cabal
had agreed to and that's why they are so hot. Technology has knocked
them
out of a very lucrative loop.

Not really. It is theft.

Well, you're entitled to your opinion even if it's wrong but it's important
to note that a number of courts have disagreed with you. And I do, too.
(-: Aereo is simply providing a way for people to see what they are legally
entitled to receive (free OTA) but can't due to geographic constraints. It
provides broadcasters with more viewers which in any other circumstances
seems to be exactly what they want.

Broadcasters are just hopping mad that Aereo might have found a way out of
the windfall "free money retransmission payments" that Congress allowed them
to extract from CATV operators. They're even more afraid that just as
Congress gave them a retransmission fees windfall, it could wave its
money-grubbing little hands and take it away.

If there's any theft involved, it's the law that allowed for such payments
in the first place. Another well-intentioned law passed by Congress that
screwed the very people it alleged to protect, namely the citizen trying to
exercise his right to watch free TV. Remember, OTA broadcasts use a very
valuable public commodity, the radio spectrum.

Broadcasters, like Clive Bundy, seem to believe that the use of that public
asset is their God given right and not a privilege that can be revoked if
Congress so chooses. I'd just love to see them make good on their threat to
stop broadcasting if they lose and give up the public spectrum they've been
using to make boatloads of money. Yeah, that'll happen. When pigs fly.

--
Bobby G.

On Monday, April 28, 2014 10:47:01 AM UTC-4, Robert Green wrote:
"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message

"Robert Green" wrote:

stuff snipped



That's not what I read. They are targeting people who *should* be in

the

signal area but because of the "urban canyon" effect can't receive a

good

signal where they live. I'm suburban and it's one reason I am keeping

cable

a little while longer. I am on the side of a hill and TV stations on

the

other side of the hill just don't come in well. That's why Aereo is big

in

cities like NYC that can have close to zero reception in areas blocked

by

very tall buildings.



So, then it is serving as a CATV or cable system, just w/o the the

cable. Sorta like charging for ethernet but not for wifi.



It really *isn't* serving as a cable system in some very important legal

ways. For one, every user has his own antenna, his own DVR and his own copy

of what was recorded. That differs substantially (legally speaking) from a

CATV system (particularly their DVR components). The CATV systems take one

copy of say "House of Cards" and stream in to 1,000's of people. Aereo

makes a distinct and separate copy of anything that a user/viewer selects.

If 100 Aereo users record "The Big Bang Theory" then there will be 100

distinct "private" copies of that show stored on Aereo's servers:



http://www.cnet.com/news/inside-the-...s-legal-hoops/



The above article has some fascinating photos of an Aereo "server farm" and

tries to explain how various clauses of the laws concerning retransmission

apply. They also reiterate what I've been saying all along:



In the transition to fully digital broadcast signals in 2009, the Federal

Communications Commission drew up maps that indicated where, if consumers

followed the necessary steps, a proper antenna above a dwelling should be

able to pick up TV broadcasts. As Kanojia and Lipowski made their own map of

New York's broadcast signals, they found big holes. - - - It's striking to

me," Lipowski said, describing missing signals at many places around the

city, no more than a few miles from the current broadcast center on the

Empire State Building. "You would not get the channels that the FCC said you

should be able to receive. ... It was just gone, you could no longer receive

television signals, you had to do something different. That's not

fair." - - - Lipowski and Kanojia found their signal sweet spot at the

Brooklyn building, a location with direct line of sight with the Empire

State Building and One World Trade Center, which will become NYC's

broadcasting tower next year.



So despite what some people are saying here, there are some serious "dead

spots" in large cities that mean people entitled to receive OTA for free

can't do so. Aereo remedies that situation. The lower courts and the

Federal Court of Appeals have both agreed with that assessment.



The article below is one of the best of dozens I've read when it comes to

explaining why Aereo has prevailed in most cases leading up to the current

one before the Supremes:



http://www.cnet.com/news/why-the-aer...tough-to-call/



Aereo's legal argument relies heavily on a case that cable provider

Cablevision won over the media companies in 2008, allowing it to offer

network DVR, the same cloud-based system that Aereo is using to record,

store and deliver over-the-air broadcasts. The Supreme Court declined to

hear an appeal of the Cablevision case the following year, and these

cloud-based services have been trucking along ever since.



The CNET article rightly points out that it's the consumer that's been

paying the hefty fees that broadcasters have extracted from the CATV

companies:



Aereo charges $8 a month for its cheapest package -- less than half the

$20.55 average price for a basic pay-TV service package in 2012, and far

below the $61.63 price for the package tier most people buy, according to

the Federal Communications Commission. . . . At first glance, Aereo looks

similar to a cable or satellite company. Yet Aereo doesn't pay, and lower

courts have largely supported its argument that it shouldn't have to. The

trick is this: Aereo specifically developed its technology to enable private

performances, the kind that are free of copyright concerns. Every customer

has an individual tiny antenna that he or she controls, and every antenna

makes a dedicated recording of the programming. By that rationale, Aereo

isn't infringing because these aren't public performances.



And they are OTA. Even the more aggressive FCC of today



That's pretty funny considering how they've rolled over like an industry

lapdog concerning net neutrality.



hasn't pretended that that extends to having people take the signal and

retransmit and get paid for it w/o cutting in the others. The signal is

free as originally and completely intended, OTA.



However, if the intention of Congress was that everyone should be able to

receive free OTA, the physics of the matter are entirely different. I've

read that Aereo does not stream content beyond the area normally reached by

OTA's broadcast towers, nor do they permit users to stream the content

they've recorded outside that area. They serve only the area that OTA is

meant to serve but for technical reasons often can't.



But how exactly does Aero control that? AFAIK, all they could do is
go by zipcode, address, etc when you establish your account. But how
do they know people aren't openly exchanging their account with friends
anywhere who want to watch say NYC or LA stations?




Essentially, they are providing a conduit for the signal to people who can't

receive it.

That's *part* of it. You seem to be making the assumption that the
usage model is just on a TV or PC within a fixed household location
that can't receive TV with an antenna.
But with Aero, you could watch it on your cell phone or tablet anywhere
there is wifi or cell phone data access. And if it's just people who
can't receive via a TV antenna, it's a very small market. People who
don't have sat or cable are a small part of the TV market today to begin
with.



They're not cutting out the advertising that supports the

broadcast OTA model, either. That's why lower courts have said these are

private performances that allow users to exercise their rights to receive

free OTA broadcasts even though they might not be able to because their

location precludes receiving the free signal. Aereo enables them to receive

what Congress decided was their right to receive even though geographic

circumstance did not allow it.



And if turns out that Aero can do this, then the cable companies could
do the same thing, thereby depriving the OTA broadcasters of their huge
revenue streams. The cable company just needs to put up a similar
farm of wee little antennas like Aero has.




The networks allege that Aereo's technology is designed simply to

evade copyright law (and more importantly to the TV broadcasters) and

the

enormous retransmission fees that cable companies pay them. Even though

OTA

content has been free, all along, to most anyone with a TV.



And still is OTA. It has never been free for cable people, so why

shouldn't the TV people get a cut. Those who don't want to pay for it,

can still get it for free OTA.



But that's the rub. You keep saying that they can "still get it for free"

but that's simply not the case. If they live in a "shadow zone" they can't

receive the OTA broadcasts that they are entitled to. Aereo uses technology

to remedy that situation. Congress allowed broadcasters the right to demand

fees because CATV is a one-to-many operation, and thus a public performance.

They also wanted to insure the health of the OTA industry by encouraging

CATV operators to retransmit local TV channels.



Aereo has been quite scrupulous in maintaining the private performance

model, hence if 1,000 Aereo subscribers have recorded "American Idolator"

g then Aereo creates 1,000 individual copies of that show whereas Comcast

will retransmit from a single copy. That's an *extremely* important legal

nuance as it pertains to existing communications law.



But if Aero prevails, there is nothing stopping the cable companies
from doing the same thing Aero does, the next day and stopping payment
to the OTA broadcasters. More likely, they would use it as a real threat
to drive down the payments they make to the broadcasters.



Remember, the copyright holder is out of this loop. They don't make an

extra dime, even if Aereo is eventually compelled to pay retransmission

fees. That's why this is a commerce and not a copyright case. The

copyright holder is barely considered in all of this. Essentially

broadcasters want ti have their cake and be able to eat it too. They want

to use the public airwaves but still be able to charge fees even considering

the enormous value of free RF spectrum. I say, too bad, so sad. I don't

want to pay more fees. Go pound sand, ABC et. al. or bribe Congress once

again to change the law in your favor. Good luck with that considering the

current "do nothing" Congress.



The TV people only break even.



Are you *sure* about that? There have been some pretty big numbers

thrown

around the retransmission fees that locals have been able to squeeze

out

of cable companies for retransmission. This case is about those fees

and

not really about much else. Why would cable companies still keep paying

them if Aereo makes that content available for far less? If the

broadcasters aren't making enough money it *could* be because they've

upset

their own episodic TV model for cheap, reality shows and ten different

versions of "Dancing with American Idolator in the Shark Tank with the

Voice" or whatever.



You were talking about how TV stations could get more money because of

the increased eyeballs through Aereo. But this was just a movement of

the same eyeballs from one form of delivery to another. It was the

number of people (and thus advertising revenue) that would stay the

same. That I am sure about.



I am equally sure you're wrong. I would invite you to prove your contention

because it runs counter to the dozens of articles I've read concerning the

matter. It's pretty well known to urban dwellers like me that big cities

like New York have a very large number of "dead spots" where OTA broadcasts

simply aren't accessible. A citation or two would be nice. (-:



In my location the DTV channel list on the north facing TV's (with "paddle"

antennas that mount on windows) is substantially different than the channel

lists on the south facing or west or east facing antennas.



Remind me again, what large city do you and HomeGuy live in that makes you

so sure that everyone in those cities has perfect reception? (-: I've

lived in NYC and Washington, DC and I can assure you, reception of even DTV

signals is a hit or miss proposition depending on your location and the type

of aerial you're able to use. It's the reason I still pay $16 a month to

Comcast for basic cable. I just can't bring in the large number of local

OTA channels that Congress says I should be able to using an aerial.

Therefore I subscribe to basic cable but I'd much rather have Aereo and it's

built it DVR for $8 a month. If the retransmission fees went to copyright

holders, I might feel different but they don't.



You don't have to remember very far back to when the TV industry was

apoplectic about the Beta-max and were proclaiming it was the end of

broadcast TV, just as they're whining now about Aereo. Yet the tape and

DVD

aftermarket made them more money in the long run than retransmission

fees

and advertising revenue.



I think you are talking two different things here. The local

stations, which is what we are talking about here, don't have any access

to the aftermarket.



Don't you agree the OTA model is funded by advertising? And that the more

people that see a broadcast, the better for both the station and its

advertiser? If Aereo brings in local viewers who would not be able to see

the OTA signal, isn't that good for them? So why are they whining so much?

It's simply because they'd like to get some of those hefty retransmission

fees from Aereo, too. And then Aereo would have to raise their rates to

customers to pay them. I don't want to pay anymore for cable. We're a

laughing stock compared to the rest of the world in what we pay for CATV and

internet access and I am tired of getting gouged by monopolistic CATV and

ISP companies



http://oti.newamerica.net/publicatio...nectivity_2013



The chart midway down the page shows how badly Americans are being screwed.

For the similar services (the popular three service bundle) you'd pay



$14.52 in Seoul

$29.96 in Zurich

$33.52 in Berlin

$34.87 in Paris and a whopping

$112.50 in Washington, DC.



That's just outrageous. It's the power of monopoly/duoply in a country

that's basically abandoned regulating monopolistic business enterprises.

It's pretty damn obvious that Joe Consumer takes it in the shorts as a

result.



This is from the amicus brief of Consumer's Union and CFA:



http://www.protectmyantenna.org/pdf/...Federation.pdf



Cable and satellite services assert that they offer consumers local

broadcast programming at affordable rates, but these packages do not offer a

single additional feature beyond the local programming itself. Consumers

with these "basic service" packages pay low rates mandated by statute, but

do not have the option to pay a reasonable additional charge to obtain only

the time- and placeshifting technology that Aereo provides. Instead,

consumers are forced into costly higher-tier "bundles" of programming and

services in order to obtain subscription packages with the other major

television providers that include some Aereo-like features cost between

$45.99 and $85.89 per month.



(There's a reason Comcast is one of the most profitable but lowest customer

rated businesses in America. They have a virtual monopoly in most of the

areas they serve. Isn't it odd how in areas served by both FIOS and Comcast

the bundles cost *exactly* the same?)



I'd be interested in seeing how the profits of the cable companies
actually compare to other businesses. If the comparison with other
countries is fair and square, then the cable companies should have
outrageous profit margins. I bet they aren't far out of line with
other businesses. And I'll bet that in those other countries with
low monthly rates, it's partly because the govts there are subsidizing
part of the infrastructure costs.

On Sunday, April 27, 2014 4:13:51 PM UTC-4, Robert Green wrote:
"trader_4" wrote in message

news:0fef2e7e-c26d-45fb-813c-



stuff snipped



The same more viewers equals more ad revenue applies to OTA being

retransmitted on cable. Yet the broadcasters managed to get them to

pay......



They paid because the physical arrangement of system allows broadcasters to

"pull the plug" and black-out broadcasts in a way they can't with Aereo.



The point isn't how the broadcasters did it. The point is simply that
they did it. The fact that more viewers equals more ad revenue wasn't
enough to make the broadcasters happy. They chose to make cable companies
pay on top of that. Therefore the argument that Aero just means more
viewers so the broadcasters should be OK with it, doesn't hold water.




http://articles.philly.com/2014-01-0...s-similar-fees



The American Television Alliance says content companies that own

broadcast-TV stations have forced the pay-TV industry into higher

retransmission fees by withholding TV channels during carriage negotiations.

Periodically, the content companies - CBS, Walt Disney Co. (which owns ABC),

NBCUniversal, and Fox - negotiate new carriage agreements to distribute

their entertainment on pay-TV systems.

When TV channels go dark on one pay-TV service, subscribers tend to drop

that service for a competing one, making blackouts an effective negotiating

tactic. Pay-TV companies pay the retransmission fees to avoid the bad

publicity and subscriber drain, executives and analysts say.



In 2013, there were 127 such blackouts, the American Television Alliance

says; there were 51 nationwide in 2011, 91 in 2012.



"It's obvious that the retransmission consent system is broken," said Brian

Frederick, spokesman for the alliance.



http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/23/bu...ted=all&src=pm



sums up how this all got started:



The two sides' positions can be summed up this way: Broadcast stations say

they provide something of value to cable operators and should be compensated

on a per-subscriber basis, the same way CNN and MTV are. Cable companies

argue that they and their subscribers should not have to pay for a signal

that households with antennas can receive free.



Add Congress to the mix: They pushed out a "bewildering" and conflicting

500 page law. While oddly detailed in some respects, it leaves a lot to

interpretation. That's precisely why Aereo has prevailed often enough in

court to raise it to the Supremes. It's about as gnarly an issue as net

neutrality and now that ISP's can broker deals for "fast lane" access things

are going to get very litigious in that arena, too.



I can take my tablet with me and watch anything I recorded on the Mediasonic

PVR wherever I am. That's very much like Aereo is doing, except the PVR is

located in their server farm. A ruling against Aereo could prohibit that,

could prohibit devices like the Slingbox and more.



It's almost surely not going to impact you ability to use a DVR
as people are now doing. Slingbox, yes, it might impact that.






Unlike Netflix streaming that sends one copy to 1,000s, Aereo sends your

copy to you and you alone. I believe that's what this case will eventually

turn on. The private performance clauses of the applicable communications

laws. Hell, they could even decide that the current "retransmission fee"

system for public broadcasts is unconstitutional. You never know with the

Roberts' Court. (-:


Yeah, that would be pretty funny, if that happened and I agree, you
never know. The libs want to give everything away for free, so there's
those votes. And the laws have enough twists and angles that enough
of the rest of the court might join in for legal reasons.







This is one of the most technically complex cases I've ever seen the SC deal

with and I just *know* they are going to step on their dicks or get their

tits caught in the wringer. They just don't do technology very well. When

I saw how badly they got suckered by Microsoft claiming they just couldn't

break out IE from Windows - it was technically impossible, their experts

said - I knew they were very out of their league in high tech cases.



The nuances of this case and the wildy divergent rulings that have followed

it since birth literally scream "this is a pivot point" where things as we

know them will probably change after the SC ruling. The court is going to

have to depend on sifting through the huge number of amicus briefs to

understand the implications their ruling may have. It will all probably

turn on something like "this is a tax, not a mandate" or "money equals

speech" or that you can safely dispose of the controlling "well-trained

militia" clause of the 2nd amendment and no one will notice. (-:



The Roberts Court is very much destined to go down in history for inventing

for the right what the Warren (and other) Courts did for the left. Is there

*really* a right to abortions in the Constitution? Does ignorance of the

law mandate the police educate you about your rights before you blab and

incriminate yourself? (Miranda) I don't expect many of the very

controversial 5/4 cases decided under Roberts will survive wholly unscathed

in the future. But as my J-prof said "the pendulum swings."



What troubles me is that if they rule against Aereo, then Amazon's Cloud

music player and lots of other sites could be next because *they* stream

copies of copyrighted material. That example illustrates again why this is

a "public v. private performance" case because the two types of performances

are treated so differently by the law. It's the reason for the thousands of

tiny antennas Aereo chose to use - to reinforce the concept that it's

private conduit from the OTA tower to the end user, not a mass one like

CATV.



Here are just *some* of the players that have dogs in this hunt and are on

Aereo's side:



Brief of Dish Network L.L.C. and Echostar Technologies L.L.C. as Amici

Curiae in Support of Aereo(April 2, 2014)

a.. Brief of the American Cable Association in Support of Aereo (April 2,

2014)

b.. Brief of Competition Law Professors, Southwestern Law Student Andrew

Pletcher, and Professor Michael M. Epstein, in Association with the Amicus

Project At Southwestern Law School, as Amici Curiae in Support of

Aereo(April 2, 2014)

c.. Brief of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, the

Consumer Electronics Association, and Engine Advocacy in Support of

Aereo(April 2, 2014)

d.. Brief of Small and Independent Broadcasters in Support of Aereo(April

2, 2014)

e.. Brief of Amici Curiae of Law Professors and Scholars in Support of

Aereo(April 2, 2014)

f.. Brief of the Consumer Federation of America and the Consumers Union in

Support of Aereo(April 2, 2014)

g.. Brief of Computer & Communications Industry Association and Mozilla

Corporation as Amici Curiae in Support of Aereo(April 2, 2014)

h.. Brief of 36 Intellectual Property and Copyright Law Professors as

Amici Curiae in Support of Aereo(April 2, 2014)

i.. The Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union in Support of

Aereo (Second Circuit)(November 13, 2012)

j.. Intellectual Property and Copyright Law Professors in Support of Aereo

Amicus Brief (Second Circuit)(October 26, 2012)

k.. Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, and the Consumer

Electronics Association Amicus Brief in Support of Aereo (Second Circuit)

(October 26, 2012)

l.. CCIA & Internet Association Amicus Brief in Support of Affirmance

(Second Circuit)(October 25, 2012)

m.. Electronic Frontier Foundation & Public Knowledge Amicus Brief

(District Court)(May 23, 2012)

n.. NetCoalition and CCIA Amicus Brief (District Court)(May 22, 2012)

(You can read each of the briefs at http://www.protectmyantenna.org/ - it's

fascinating stuff)



--

Bobby G.



I agree. There are many angles to this, many players involved and
the ruling could have big consequences and probably consequences
no one is even thinking of.

On Sunday, April 27, 2014 8:56:32 AM UTC-4, Home Guy wrote:
Robert Green wrote:



There's a lot more to it than that. An important point to remember

about the exorbitant retransmission fees that OTA broadcasters exact

from the cable TV companies...



Does anyone happen to know just how much those fees are, on a

per-customer basis?



In the urban canyons where Aereo flourishes



I don't think it's possible to know what fraction of Aereo's customer

live in OTA-challenged circumstances.



It would also involve speculating to what extent these customers watch

Aereo on stationary TV's (which is a challenge in itself for the vast

majority of people) vs on a tablet or phone somewhere else (commuting to

work? In a park? At work? In a restaurant or bar?).



We would have to see a breakdown of the various use-cases for how and

where these people are using aereo.



Would anyone pay for Aereo if they could get a good OTA signal

*without* paying for it?



For the average person I would say yes. Many people either do not know

or have long forgotten that terrestrial TV broadcasting was (and still

us) commonplace and everpresent.



It's not that people have forgotten it. It's just that only a small
percentage of the TV market is satisfied today with the OTA channels.
The largest segment of the market wants more than that, ie the many
cable/sat channels. And once you get cable/sat, you get the OTA
channels as part of it.





Why would Aereo even work as a business model if the people that

purchased their service could just as easily use rabbit ears?

Unfortunately it's been well-established in urban areas that not

everyone who is legally entitled to OTA broadcasts can actually

receive them.



Ok, you're clearly operating under some old impressions here.



Why would you think everyone in say the NYC area can easily pick
up all the broadcast TV channels? Clearly there are some people who
won't be able to because of issues like buildings blocking the
signal, living in a geographic low spot, etc. And then there is a
larger segment, where they could receive it, but putting up the
necessary antenna is difficult, too costly, landlord won't allow it,
etc. What percentage that is, IDK. I would agree that I'm not sure
that's Aero's real target market, but for sure there are people in
that situation.





For one, multipath distortion did cause problems for "urban canyon"

reception, particularly on VHF channels. But also remember that VHF and

UHF frequencies penetrate much further into sold materials vs cell-phone

frequencies. The 700 mhz spectrum (formerly used by UHF channels 53

through 69) which is now allocated to new cellular service promises a

new era in trouble-free reception for portable devices.



I thought we were talking about today, not promises.




Also note that many TV stations have abandoned VHF channels

(particularly VHF-lo) and have gone to UHF.



Doesn't matter, there are still going to be people who for one
reason or another, can't recieve OTA via an antenna.




The claim that a cell phone needs a telescoping whip antenna to receive

OTA TV can be completely trashed if you simply don't even try tuning in

the VHF spectrum at all, or simply optimize the internal antenna for UHF

only and accept spotty VHF performance (which isin't really a hardship

because as just mentioned the vast majority of TV is now using UHF

channels).


Can you show us a single hand-held mini TV that doesn't have a
telescoping antenna?




Second, we're talking digital ATSC signals, for which you can receive a

crystal-clear picture with surprisingly low signal levels and multipath

distortion. So stop comparing the receive-ability of analog TV a decade

ago in hi-rise urban appartment buildings with what is possible today's

digital signal format.



I didn't think Robert was making that comparison. Sure, ATSC is
better, but that doesn't mean it can penetrate through huge
buildings and that everyone is guaranteed to be able to receive it.




The 800 lb gorilla in the room is still asking why even just a few

models of cell phones made today (and available in north america) does

not have the ability to receive these signals.



I thought you said you solved that a few days ago.

On Sunday, April 27, 2014 6:18:59 PM UTC-4, Robert Green wrote:
"Home Guy" "Home"@Guy. com wrote in message

...

Robert Green wrote:



Why would Aereo even work as a business model if the people that

purchased their service could just as easily use rabbit ears?

Unfortunately it's been well-established in urban areas that not

everyone who is legally entitled to OTA broadcasts can actually

receive them.



Ok, you're clearly operating under some old impressions here.



Nope. I am reporting the experience of living on a hillside in a pretty

densely packed urban area. I use the antennas that stick to the windows on

my TV's throughout the house. On the north side I can get *some* Baltimore

stations, but none on the south side. On the south side I can get many

Virginia stations I can't get on the north side. IOW, each TV's channel

list is substantially different depending on which side of the house the

aerial for that TV is located. Now, with all the Mediasonic boxes I just

bought, I will be able to run that same test with identical tuners that have

signal level meters built-in to eliminate any possible tuner sensitivity

differences.



This is in a fairly residential area with out many tall buildings. The

situation gets far worse if you're in a tall condo along Mass. Ave in DC

where my friend lives. A trip to any of the TV newsgroups or forums will

reveal just how many people are in the same boat with "rabbit ears" in urban

areas. Aereo specifically targeted cities with known reception issues.

Perhaps Aereo has done surveys to determine why people sign up - I haven't

found any so far - but I steadfastly believe that many do sign up because

their rabbit ears suck and they don't have access to a rooftop or community

antenna.



I've seen enough pixelated displays to know that digital TV is in some ways

worse than analog. An analog picture degrades in ways that are still

viewable in many cases. You just have to put up with ghosts or snow. DTV?

Pixelation is the step before dropouts. I live near an airport. I can

track planes by the way DTV signal on channel 20 breaks up. With analog, a

jet overhead would cause ghosting but the audio remained clear. Now the

picture pixelates and then disappears entirely when the plane passes

overhead. And the audio goes with it. Aereo would prevent that sort of

stuff from happening for me and a lot of other users with set-top aerials.



FWIW, I'll bet that Aereo knows what devices it's streaming to - whether

mobile or home.



--

Bobby G.

I agree with you that ATSC isn't perfect. There are definitely people
out there who for one reason or another, can't pick up OTA stations
that they want to watch with a simple antenna. There was a lot of
discussion about that, a lot of ****ed off people when the transition
to ATSC was made. I'm not saying that ATSC is inferior, just that
with some transmitters located in different areas from the old
transmitters, whatever, there were people who could not receive it.
I'm not sure what part of Aero's market that is, but it's real. I'd
also really wonder how well a cell phone with an ATSC tuner would
work when you're moving around. One reason there may be no rush to
offer the product is that the cell phone companies, carriers, etc
don't want a bunch of ****ed off customers. You're having problems
receiving OTA in your house with a real antenna. Imagine what would
happen with a tiny antenna built into a cell phone. I could see it
working in one room, near a window, but not in another room. Or
the signal coming and going as you walk around. If you have a happy
customer base and folks aren't clammering for TV on their cell, if
I were the cell phone companies, I'd insist that it be a really robust
product. Why put something in a phone unless it really works well?
Who needs tarnished reputations and bitching customers? In other words,
I'd do a lot of testing to make sure it really works well. I wouldn't be surprised that the answer to that testing is one reason they might not be
eager to roll it out.

On Sunday, April 27, 2014 6:41:03 PM UTC-4, bob haller wrote:
On Sunday, April 27, 2014 11:41:53 AM UTC-4, til.com wrote:





the antenna works very good


So then WHY are you in favor of doing away with OTA?? smh...

Robert Green wrote:

It really *isn't* serving as a cable system in some very important
legal ways. For one, every user has his own antenna, his own DVR
and his own copy of what was recorded.

Don't you think Aereo needs more than just an individual antenna for
each customer?

Wouldn't then need a dedicated tuner, video decoder, and a server that
can "narrow-cast" (not multi-cast) a data stream to each customer?

In fact, there's no reason why Aereo would need an individual antenna
for each customer.

What they would need is a single antenna feeding individual
tuners/decoders/servers.

After all, usually, any given household has just a single antenna that
connects to all the TV's in the house. That obviously is the model for
legal consumer TV reception and viewing.

How Aereo goes about proving that has a dedicated tuner/decoder/server
for each customer is the problem here.

They could simply have one tuner per channel, such that they decode a
single feed for each available TV channel in a given locale and
multi-cast that feed to everyone that has chosen to watch each channel
at any given time.

However, if the intention of Congress was that everyone should be
able to receive free OTA...

That's too much of a reach.

The radio spectrum has been deemed a natural public resource, and a
regulatory system has been established to control who can use that
resource. You can't heap on top of that some notion that citizens have
any particular right to receive licensed broadcasts such that the
broadcaster must take special measures to insure reception.

I've read that Aereo does not stream content beyond the area
normally reached by OTA's broadcast towers,

Geographic IP location is tricky, and even moreso when you try to limit
someone in Cleveland from being able to watch a TV channel being
received in Cincinnatti.

Did the Supreme court ask, or hear arguments as to why the TV stations
themselves don't offer a "watch live now" button on their website,
thereby allowing anyone to watch their live broadcast over the internet
- at any time of the day, any day of the week, regardless what TV show
is airing?

How can the broadcasters or TV stations claim any sort of harm or
interference by Aereo if they themselves don't even offer direct
web-viewing of their live broadcasts?

Are ALL TV broadcasters of the same mind when it comes to Aereo? Or do
some independants or small networks (ION, various Christian TV stations)
welcome Aereo and actually desire to have someone like Aereo take on the
infrastructure and bandwidth costs to distribute their OTA broadcasts
over the internet?

And still is OTA. It has never been free for cable people, so
why shouldn't the TV people get a cut.

What if I install residential TV antennas for a living, but instead of
selling you the antenna and charging for installation, I install the
antenna and charge you $10 a month for you to be able to watch OTA to
the extent that your location allows for it. I even throw in a digital
PVR for you to use. Should I be paying some sort of cut to the TV
stations that my customers are watching?

Those who don't want to pay for it, can still get it for
free OTA.

But that's the rub. You keep saying that they can "still
get it for free" but that's simply not the case. If they
live in a "shadow zone" they can't receive the OTA broadcasts
that they are entitled to.

That's a straw argument. Aereo is clearly not taking measures to ONLY
serve people that they know live in a pocket that can't receive
(some/many/most) OTA signals.

Aereo uses technology to remedy that situation.

And the TV stations themselves could offer a direct "watch live" feature
on their website (we know that all TV stations have a web-presence of
one sort or another). Why isin't anyone asking why they don't do that?
That would kill Aereo's reason for existance immediately.

Remind me again, what large city do you and HomeGuy live in that
makes you so sure that everyone in those cities has perfect
reception?

I'm in Canada (Ontario) so our OTA landscape is somewhat different.

I can tell you that, for some reason, cities of 400k+ people in Canada
is lucky to have their own local, independant TV station, let alone a
station (not a re-transmitter) for each major network (ABC, NBC, CBS,
FOX, WB, etc).

In the US you can have cities half that size that have a station for
each network, one or two independents, with each of them broadcasting
their own version of a morning show and 6 pm and 11 pm news. And you
will probably have at least 1 station with it's own news helecopter.
Outside of Toronto there probably isin't any Canadian TV station with a
helicopter. I don't know what it is about the economics of network TV
and local TV stations that leads to this disparity.

When it comes to reception of OTA in Canada, the main goal is to be able
to receive US TV stations. In a city like Windsor (Ontario) that is
extremely easy (I don't live in Windsor, but it was my home town until I
went to university).

Don't you agree the OTA model is funded by advertising?
And that the more people that see a broadcast, the better
for both the station and its advertiser?

That is a logical argument, but it doesn't explain why TV stations don't
allow people to "watch live" on their website.

This is from the amicus brief of Consumer's Union and CFA:

Cable and satellite services assert that they offer consumers local
broadcast programming at affordable rates, but these packages do
not offer a single additional feature beyond the local programming
itself.

Ok - If I put up an antenna, what addition features does the antenna
give me beyond the local programming?

Consumers with these "basic service" packages pay low rates
mandated by statute, but do not have the option to pay a reasonable
additional charge to obtain only the time- and placeshifting
technology that Aereo provides.

Ok, hold it right there.

Blame the consumer electronics industry in the US for not offering the
equivalent of a digital (ATSC) vcr, because that's what people used
(NTSC VCR) to use for time-shifting when they were served by OTA.

It's not the responsibility of the broadcaster to offer time-shifting -
it's up to the consumer to obtain their own time-shifting hardware.

and placeshifting technology that Aereo provides.

Placeshifting?

As in - I'm in New York, and I want to watch Los Angeles KCAL (CBS
Channel 9) right now?

I thought that Aereo's model (as we understood it) did not allow for
that.

I, for one, support Aereo because I am tired of getting reamed year
after year by Comcast who ups the rate and decreases the number
of *good* channels every year.

The 800 lb gorilla in the room is asking:

- why don't consumers have the choice of a cell phone with ATSC tuner?
- why don't consumers have the choice of a digital VCR with ATSC tuner?
- why don't TV stations allow internet viewers to "watch live" ?

Did the supreme court ask any of those questions?

Aereo is a rube-goldberg way to address the STRATEGIC shortcoming of the
consumer electronics market and the fact that tv stations themselves,
for some reason, do not allow viewability of their live broadcast stream
over the internet.

I think that the supreme court should side with Aereo, because clearly
there is anti-competitive collusion going on in this marketplace and
Aereo is one way to fight it.

"trader_4" wrote in message
news:1ad33faa-e046-43ab-8571-

stuff snipped

I've read that Aereo does not stream content beyond the area normally
reached by
OTA's broadcast towers, nor do they permit users to stream the content
they've recorded outside that area. They serve only the area that OTA
is
meant to serve but for technical reasons often can't.

But how exactly does Aero control that?

They didn't say in the article I read but I assume it's easy enough to do.
Besides, it's FREE OTA TV - why would someone want to steal it? It's not
like we're talking about "Game of Thrones" or "Breaking Bad."

AFAIK, all they could do is
go by zipcode, address, etc when you establish your account. But how
do they know people aren't openly exchanging their account with friends
anywhere who want to watch say NYC or LA stations?

I'm going to bet they have some methodology and that the incidence of NYC
people wanting to watch LA TV is pretty darn low. I'll bet data latency and
the number of hops it takes to reach the user's device would give them some
clues. But even if there's "exchanging" how exactly is an
advertising-sponsored TV broadcast hurt by being exposed to more viewers and
potential customers of the advertisers? In court, to recover damages, you
have to show an injury. Where's the injury and to whom here?

Essentially, they are providing a conduit for the signal to people who
can't
receive it.

That's *part* of it. You seem to be making the assumption that the
usage model is just on a TV or PC within a fixed household location
that can't receive TV with an antenna.

Mostly I am refuting the contention that everyone in New York City, etc. can
get perfect reception with rabbit ears. I'll readily agree there are many
other different reasons to have an Aereo account. But there's nothing Aereo
does that we couldn't do ourselves with a PVR and a PC on the net. Make what
they did illegal and a lot of things that are perfectly legal for private
viewers to do now will be in jeopardy - a sentiment expressed by Justice
Breyer, IIRC.

But with Aero, you could watch it on your cell phone or tablet anywhere
there is wifi or cell phone data access.

The Betamax case long ago established that mechanisms like the VCR that
hadn't been invented when the TV broadcast system was created were
nonetheless legal to use. It's a transmission you're entitled to receive
for free "placeshifted" to a different location and/or time. That seems to
be legal, according to many experts in the field. It's important to
remember that a lot of rules and regulations came with the award of free
public RF spectrum to TV broadcasters - something they seem eager to forget.
You can bet if they could figure a way to charge you for each person that
views their transmission on your TV, they would. Fortunately Federal law
precludes that with the private/public performance test.

And if it's just people who
can't receive via a TV antenna, it's a very small market.

Got any citations? I have no idea what part of the market they comprise but
the problem of bad reception surfaces again and again in amicus briefs, news
articles and Aereo's PR materials. I have to assume it's a legitimate
problem but I couldn't say what percent of their customers chose it for that
reason. It's not so unbelievable because *many* people subscribe to basic
cable which is basically OTA channels retransmitted. I'm one of them.

People who don't have sat or cable are a small part of the TV market today
to begin
with.

That is something I know to be true, but what the CAT/SAT people fear is
that Aereo is enough for some people to be willing to cut the cord on the
other services. If I had it, I might ditch Comcast basic because Aereo
provides mostly the same channels (I'd lose public access, WGN and C-Span)
AND a DVR plus streaming for $8. If I am willing to wait, Netflix usually
has anything else I want and for far less than it would cost via cable.

What interests me more is that in the markets where Aereo operates, cable
rates have fallen dramatically. The effect of *true* competition. For that
reason alone (although there are many others) I hope Aereo prevails. There
are remarkably few viable alternative to CATV and internet in many markets
except for one or two providers. Only big cities typically offer more than
two or three. That's not enough competition to have a positive effect for
consumers. They're stuck in a "take or leave it" mode.

They're not cutting out the advertising that supports the
broadcast OTA model, either. That's why lower courts have said these
are
private performances that allow users to exercise their rights to
receive
free OTA broadcasts even though they might not be able to because their
location precludes receiving the free signal. Aereo enables them to
receive
what Congress decided was their right to receive even though geographic
circumstance did not allow it.

And if turns out that Aero can do this, then the cable companies could
do the same thing, thereby depriving the OTA broadcasters of their huge
revenue streams. The cable company just needs to put up a similar
farm of wee little antennas like Aero has.

That may, in the end, be exactly what happens should the court decide for
Aereo. The laws concerning this are immensely complicated and as you said
elsewhere, a valid loophole is often good enough to force the Supremes to
rule in a way people didn't expect. The problem is that I believe the cable
companies are defined specifically in the law and would have to pay anyway.
I haven't (nor will I!) read the 500 page law that covers just one aspect of
this case to find out.

I think it's very possible that the Supremes will have to let Aereo live not
for themselves, but because a ruling against them could seriously upset many
well-established cloud-based systems. They often do such things with an
admonition to Congress to rewrite the laws in a more specific (and sometimes
more constitutional) way. The decision's a long way off because it's such a
complicated one and even the Clinton appointees on the bench, reputed to be
the Court's IP and copyright specialists, don't see eye to eye. I think
Congress erred with retransmission fees and those chickens are coming home
to roost in the Aereo case.

--
Bobby G.

On Monday, April 28, 2014 1:45:43 PM UTC-4, Robert Green wrote:
"trader_4" wrote in message

news:1ad33faa-e046-43ab-8571-



stuff snipped



I've read that Aereo does not stream content beyond the area normally

reached by

OTA's broadcast towers, nor do they permit users to stream the content

they've recorded outside that area. They serve only the area that OTA

is

meant to serve but for technical reasons often can't.



But how exactly does Aero control that?



They didn't say in the article I read but I assume it's easy enough to do.


What makes you think it's easy to control where one watches via the
internet? They obviously can't stop you from giving access to your
friends in LA, so they can watch NY, etc. In fact, one of the whole
selling points of Aero was that you can watch what you'd normally
watch with an antenna anywere you go, eg you can watch NYC while on
vacation in Europe.


Besides, it's FREE OTA TV - why would someone want to steal it? It's not

like we're talking about "Game of Thrones" or "Breaking Bad."


So they can watch the OTA locals from some other city where they
don't live. How many people want to do that, IDK. But apparently
it's a key thing that is illegal if you do it and the broadcasters have
their shorts in a knot over it. Otherwise Aero would just allow anyone
to sign up to watch NYC from anywhere. As I understand it and I think
you agree, Aero won't let you do that. And I say there is no real way to
control what one is apparently allowed to do versus what they can do.
If you live in LA, you can't sign up to watch OTA NYC via Aero. But
if I sign up in NYC, and my buddy signs up in LA, then we can share
access and easily do what it's apparently illegal to do and there is
now way Aero can stop it.




AFAIK, all they could do is

go by zipcode, address, etc when you establish your account. But how

do they know people aren't openly exchanging their account with friends

anywhere who want to watch say NYC or LA stations?



I'm going to bet they have some methodology and that the incidence of NYC

people wanting to watch LA TV is pretty darn low. I'll bet data latency and

the number of hops it takes to reach the user's device would give them some

clues. But even if there's "exchanging" how exactly is an

advertising-sponsored TV broadcast hurt by being exposed to more viewers and

potential customers of the advertisers? In court, to recover damages, you

have to show an injury. Where's the injury and to whom here?


IDK which laws apply, what the penalties are. But
obviously Aero is worried about it being a real problem, or they would
let someone in LA or Europe sign-up to watch NYC.





Essentially, they are providing a conduit for the signal to people who

can't

receive it.



That's *part* of it. You seem to be making the assumption that the

usage model is just on a TV or PC within a fixed household location

that can't receive TV with an antenna.



Mostly I am refuting the contention that everyone in New York City, etc. can

get perfect reception with rabbit ears.

I agree 100% with that.


I'll readily agree there are many

other different reasons to have an Aereo account. But there's nothing Aereo

does that we couldn't do ourselves with a PVR and a PC on the net.
Make what

they did illegal and a lot of things that are perfectly legal for private

viewers to do now will be in jeopardy - a sentiment expressed by Justice

Breyer, IIRC.


Maybe, but it depends on what specific points the ruling relies on.





But with Aero, you could watch it on your cell phone or tablet anywhere

there is wifi or cell phone data access.



The Betamax case long ago established that mechanisms like the VCR that

hadn't been invented when the TV broadcast system was created were

nonetheless legal to use. It's a transmission you're entitled to receive

for free "placeshifted" to a different location and/or time. That seems to

be legal, according to many experts in the field.

I don't think it's that simple. You could view the OTA signal going into
a cable system as just being placeshifted, but somehow the cable companies
lost that one and are paying huge fees to the broadcasters to put on their
cable what you can watch for free with an antenna.



It's important to

remember that a lot of rules and regulations came with the award of free

public RF spectrum to TV broadcasters - something they seem eager to forget.

You can bet if they could figure a way to charge you for each person that

views their transmission on your TV, they would. Fortunately Federal law

precludes that with the private/public performance test.



And if it's just people who

can't receive via a TV antenna, it's a very small market.



Got any citations? I have no idea what part of the market they comprise but

the problem of bad reception surfaces again and again in amicus briefs, news

articles and Aereo's PR materials. I have to assume it's a legitimate

problem but I couldn't say what percent of their customers chose it for that

reason. It's not so unbelievable because *many* people subscribe to basic

cable which is basically OTA channels retransmitted. I'm one of them.



When the switch to ATSC was taking place, there was concern about how
many people might not be able to receive it, so there was discussion about
how many it might affect, etc. There was only about 15% of TV viewers
who were receiving via antenna at that time. If that's the total, you'd
have to believe that the number who would want to just receive that but
can't with just an antenna is likely to be just a few perecent of the market.
That could still be a business model for Aero, but it's not much of the
total market. I haven't seen any breakdown on what percent of cable
customers just get the minimal OTA type package.

Part of that is there are some people who could put up an antenna, but
because of where they are located, it's not easy. Maybe it takes a roof
antenna, and they are in a rental. Maybe they are in an apt and the apt
only has cable, etc. But there are also roadblocks to Aero. If I sign
up for Aero, I'm sure I can instantly watch it on my PC. But how do
I get it to my 50" TV? I guess you can stream it via Roku or something,
but it's another challenge to figure out for someone that has cable access
that already works.





People who don't have sat or cable are a small part of the TV market today

to begin

with.



That is something I know to be true, but what the CAT/SAT people fear is

that Aereo is enough for some people to be willing to cut the cord on the

other services.

Interesting. I saw cable companies were on your list of folks before the SC,
but which side are they on? I would have thought they might be on the side
of Aero, hoping that the SC would nullify the ability of the broadcasters to
charge them for sending the OTA stuff down the cable.



If I had it, I might ditch Comcast basic because Aereo

provides mostly the same channels (I'd lose public access, WGN and C-Span)

AND a DVR plus streaming for $8. If I am willing to wait, Netflix usually

has anything else I want and for far less than it would cost via cable.



What interests me more is that in the markets where Aereo operates, cable

rates have fallen dramatically. The effect of *true* competition.

You have a cite that shows that and that Aero is the cause?
IDK a single person who has Aero or even knows what it is. I'd be
shocked that they could have had any real impact on the cable companies.
I sure wouldn't be dropping rates on the huge segment of my business
that most people want, to stop a tiny percent who only want OTA from
going away.




For that

reason alone (although there are many others) I hope Aereo prevails. There

are remarkably few viable alternative to CATV and internet in many markets

except for one or two providers. Only big cities typically offer more than

two or three. That's not enough competition to have a positive effect for

consumers. They're stuck in a "take or leave it" mode.



I'd agree that Aero winning would most likely be a good thing. I say
most likely, because it's so complex that I can't forsee all the possible
repurcussions.

trader_4 wrote:

So they can watch the OTA locals from some other city where they
don't live. How many people want to do that, IDK. But apparently
it's a key thing that is illegal if you do it and the broadcasters
have their shorts in a knot over it. Otherwise Aero would just
allow anyone to sign up to watch NYC from anywhere. As I understand
it and I think you agree, Aero won't let you do that.

I thought that someone on Aereo's side (maybe Aereo itself) was arguing
for both time-shifting AND place-shifting as something they allow that
OTA consumers no longer have the ability to do.

Place-shifting to me means being able to watch distant OTA channels that
I wouldn't normally be able to receive with an antenna.

I'm sure many people on vacation or while travelling would love to watch
their local TV news from back home. And Aereo allows it to be PVR'd so
they can watch it at their conveinence.

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 10:45:55 AM UTC-4, Home Guy wrote:
trader_4 wrote:



So they can watch the OTA locals from some other city where they

don't live. How many people want to do that, IDK. But apparently

it's a key thing that is illegal if you do it and the broadcasters

have their shorts in a knot over it. Otherwise Aero would just

allow anyone to sign up to watch NYC from anywhere. As I understand

it and I think you agree, Aero won't let you do that.



I thought that someone on Aereo's side (maybe Aereo itself) was arguing

for both time-shifting AND place-shifting as something they allow that

OTA consumers no longer have the ability to do.



I believe that is correct, because that is what Aero is doing, so they
better be arguing for it.




Place-shifting to me means being able to watch distant OTA channels that

I wouldn't normally be able to receive with an antenna.



I'm pretty sure to Aero it means that you can place-shift only what
you could receive OTA at your your traditional viewing location. If
you live in the NYC area, you can watch that anywhere. But you can't
watch LA. How they then handle people who have multiple homes, or
say a business presence in another city, IDK. For example, if you live
in NYC but are regularly in business in LA and your company has an
office there, then what? That's why I was saying IDK how they can
really control that.




I'm sure many people on vacation or while travelling would love to watch

their local TV news from back home. And Aereo allows it to be PVR'd so

they can watch it at their conveinence.

If that kind of thing was available for free, I'd probably use it while
on vacation once in awhile. But I wouldn't pay $8 a month to be able
to do it the few times that I actually would. Actually, while on vacation,
two things happen. One, I'm less interested in TV because there is a lot
more to do. Second, if I'm in Europe, it's interesting to see the news
that's there and available on the hotel TV for free to get a different
perspective. And I have a Tivo, so any series I'm following is there
when I get back.

trader_4 wrote:

I thought that someone on Aereo's side (maybe Aereo itself) was
arguing for both time-shifting AND place-shifting as something
they allow that OTA consumers no longer have the ability to do.

I believe that is correct, because that is what Aero is doing, so
they better be arguing for it.

I'm pretty sure to Aero it means that you can place-shift only what
you could receive OTA at your your traditional viewing location. If
you live in the NYC area, you can watch that anywhere.
But you can't watch LA.

Place shifting apparently doesn't mean what we think.

Or, Aereo doesn't really claim anything other than prohibition of
viewing when it comes to knowning where you a

--------------
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/05/21/aereo/

It works eerily well, though at the moment it's only up and running in
the New York City DMA, or "designated market area." That's a funny
story, too. Basically, Aereo uses FCC maps to determine the maximum
perimeter around the New York City metropolitan area from which someone
with a typical residential TV antenna on her roof would be able to pick
up over-the-air signals from New York City.

If the customer ventures outside that range, her phone's GPS or wi-fi
systems will eventually detect that fact, and Aereo will dutifully cut
off reception. (So, for instance, some parts of the Hamptons get
reception, some don't.) Since it's ordinarily not possible to receive
New York's over-the-air signals with an antenna beyond a certain
distance, Aereo imposes analogous, if artificial, limitations on its
users.
----------------

Perhaps if you have an Aereo account, and if you are located in (or
visit, travel to) ANY area (designated market area) that Aereo serves,
you can watch the TV channels in that area, regardless the physical home
address that Aereo has on file for you.

The dependency on GPS is interesting - and telling. It says that Aereo
is targeting the cell phone as their primary display device - and they
think it's a growth opportunity.

I'm sure many people on vacation or while travelling would love
to watch their local TV news from back home. And Aereo allows
it to be PVR'd so they can watch it at their conveinence.

If that kind of thing was available for free ...

Well we now know that if you're paying Aereo $14 a month, you can't use
it when you travel or visit most of planet earth outside of some very
small geographical areas.

Apparently the Slingbox models currently being sold (350/500) DO NOT
have antenna/cable inputs (ie - no tuner of any sort) but an older model
(Slingbox HD) did.

And since we're talking about "placeshifting" ...

http://placeshiftingenthusiasts.com/

-----------
...Frustratingly, the rest of the world seems to have a lot
more OTA DVR options than the US.

1/13/2011

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1305284/ho...or-an-atsc-dvr
-------------


http://slickdeals.net/f/6008474-slin...rb-120-shipped

Sling Media Slingbox PRO-HD, 1080i, ATSC Tuner, On-Screen Remote Control
(Refurb.) $120 Shipped

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014 9:10:45 PM UTC-4, Home Guy wrote:
trader_4 wrote:



I thought that someone on Aereo's side (maybe Aereo itself) was

arguing for both time-shifting AND place-shifting as something

they allow that OTA consumers no longer have the ability to do.



I believe that is correct, because that is what Aero is doing, so

they better be arguing for it.



I'm pretty sure to Aero it means that you can place-shift only what

you could receive OTA at your your traditional viewing location. If

you live in the NYC area, you can watch that anywhere.

But you can't watch LA.



Place shifting apparently doesn't mean what we think.



Or, Aereo doesn't really claim anything other than prohibition of

viewing when it comes to knowning where you a



--------------

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/05/21/aereo/



It works eerily well, though at the moment it's only up and running in

the New York City DMA, or "designated market area." That's a funny

story, too. Basically, Aereo uses FCC maps to determine the maximum

perimeter around the New York City metropolitan area from which someone

with a typical residential TV antenna on her roof would be able to pick

up over-the-air signals from New York City.



If the customer ventures outside that range, her phone's GPS or wi-fi

systems will eventually detect that fact, and Aereo will dutifully cut

off reception.

How about if it's a PC with no GPS? Can they always tell where you
are anyway? I would think there are services that you can pass through
to make it look like your internet presence is somewhere other than
where you are physically located.



(So, for instance, some parts of the Hamptons get

reception, some don't.) Since it's ordinarily not possible to receive

New York's over-the-air signals with an antenna beyond a certain

distance, Aereo imposes analogous, if artificial, limitations on its

users.

----------------



Perhaps if you have an Aereo account, and if you are located in (or

visit, travel to) ANY area (designated market area) that Aereo serves,

you can watch the TV channels in that area, regardless the physical home

address that Aereo has on file for you.



The dependency on GPS is interesting - and telling. It says that Aereo

is targeting the cell phone as their primary display device - and they

think it's a growth opportunity.



I don't see them saying they are dependent on GPS. They clearly
say you can watch Aero on your PC.




I'm sure many people on vacation or while travelling would love

to watch their local TV news from back home. And Aereo allows

it to be PVR'd so they can watch it at their conveinence.



If that kind of thing was available for free ...



Well we now know that if you're paying Aereo $14 a month, you can't use

it when you travel or visit most of planet earth outside of some very

small geographical areas.



Yes, I was wrong on that point. That would seem to greatly diminish
it's usefullness. I'd be a lot more likely to use an Aero like service
to watch home channels when out of the area. Even then, it wouldn't be
something I'd pay for.




Apparently the Slingbox models currently being sold (350/500) DO NOT

have antenna/cable inputs (ie - no tuner of any sort) but an older model

(Slingbox HD) did.



So then it sounds like Slingbox came to the same odd conclusion.
Which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. You can hook up a slingbox
without a tuner at your home, use an external ATSC tuner, and watch
that OTA from anywhere and it's OK.
But if they put the tuner inside, then it's violating some law?

"trader_4" wrote in message
news:8f6a9a2d-00b1-46f7-9881-
On Monday, April 28, 2014 1:45:43 PM UTC-4, Robert Green wrote:

What makes you think it's easy to control where one watches via the
internet? They obviously can't stop you from giving access to your
friends in LA, so they can watch NY, etc. In fact, one of the whole
selling points of Aero was that you can watch what you'd normally
watch with an antenna anywere you go, eg you can watch NYC while on
vacation in Europe.

They know where they are streaming content to because someone has to sign in
to get the feed. I think it's really a trivial process to insure *for the
most part* that their signal doesn't reach outside the broadcast area.
That's central to a pillar of their case - that they are NOT like a cable
operator who streams video from all over the country. Look for "traceroute"
tools on Google and you can see how easy it is to figure out where someone
is:

TraceRoute from Network-Tools.com to 24.3.130.170
[c-24-3-130-170.hsd1.pa.comcast.net]

Hop (ms) (ms) (ms) IP Address Host name

1 0 0 0 8.9.232.73 8-1-18.ear1.dallas1.level3.net

2 1 1 0 50.242.148.29 cr01.dallas.tx.ibone.comcast.net

3 23 21 21 68.86.88.237
cr01.56marietta.ga.ibone.comcast.net

4 34 34 36 68.86.89.153
cr01.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.net

5 38 40 40 68.86.94.166
ar03.mckeesport.pa.pitt.comcast.net

6 42 46 46 69.139.194.102
sur01.ross.pa.pitt.comcast.net

7 39 40 40 68.85.234.122 ten03.ross.pa.pitt.comcast.net


http://network-tools.com/default.asp...t=24.3.130.170

You can see where the data is going and how long it takes to get there. I
really have no doubt that they are able to keep the majority of their data
within the geographic boundary they've chosen.

If they disallow proxy servers and keep an eye on latency and number of hops
to the target, I think it's rather trivial of them to tailor the service
area to the broadcast "envelope." Could people get around it? Yes, but
once again, it's OTA *FREE* TV and not premium content so the incentive to
steal is way, way less than with "Game of Thrones." Nothing would stop
anyone from making a DVD of tonight's OTA broadcast in NYC and mailing it to
LA. So it seems Aereo is being exceptionally cautious to conform to the
concept of them merely "repeating" OTA broadcasts to those that are
entitled.

--
Bobby G.