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> because it's using someone else's content for free

Um, the TV channels are already broadcasting their content for free. You know that, right?

> They don't themselves create or provide anything users actually want to buy

They're no different from an antenna and DVR of your own. You buy those, or you buy Aereo -- same thing. Both cases distribute the signal. You're not complaining that people shouldn't be able to buy their own antennas because the antennas don't "create anything", are you?

> do so without compensating the people

You do realize that broadcast TV comes with commercials, no? The channels have been compensated for decades this way, and it's not like Aereo is stripping out the commercials.

My ISP doesn't create anything that I want to buy either, it just distributes the work of other people (e.g. Google, Netflix, etc) without compensating them. Are ISPs running on an unethical business model?

Aereo is just an ISP for the airwaves instead of the Internet - it carries content that people have the right to access for them, and gets paid for that.

On the other hand, the article implies that the broadcasters are not very good at... broadcasting. A big challenge for Aereo was finding a location that gets all the signals:

> "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."

Some Aereo customers use it because they can't receive signals from the broadcasters. The broadcasters seem to feel that these customers shouldn't use Aereo. Instead, the customers should pay ComastTimeWarnerMegaCorp, who can then pay the broadcasters.

i.e. Not only do the broadcasters not want to spend money improving their infrastructure -- they want to get money for not broadcasting well.

The sense of lazy entitlement among broadcast and cable operators is pretty stunning.

The content creators aren't compensated when you put rabbit ears on your TV either. They have to make their money sidechannel via advertising. Aereo provides more eyes for that advertising, so you really can't accurately say that the network isn't compensated. They're compensated the exact same way as any other OTA broadcast.

There's one important thing you're not adequately accounting for that makes this situation difficult to analogize. The deal that gives broadcasters access to the airwaves also specifies that customers be able to freely tune into over-the-air programming. As they said in the article, there are a lot of people who don't even live in a place where they can access the digital broadcasts due to coverage issues. Many people in apartments are not allowed to install aerial antennas that might also allow them to access the OTA signals. Aereo helps provide such people with a cheaper way to access the content they are entitled to than cable.

I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with what Aereo's doing. The elephant in the room is that if it gets ruled legal, the floodgates will be opened for cable companies to do the same, and the retransmission scheme will be in peril. My opinion is that Aereo shouldn't be punished for what these other companies might do.

How is it different than paying your cable company to watch local channels over the wire? You can't watch "premium" cable channels. It's just the stuff you'd pick up with an OTA antenna, commercials included.

The real benefit of aereo is that it's all web based, so no one is tethered to their tv to watch.

Your cable company pays the local channels in most cases; look up "Retransmission Consent Agreement." Aereo are specifically avoiding negotiating these types of agreement.

Aereo didn't avoid the negotiation - they discovered a way to not have to pay the retransmission fees at all. No negotiation needed.

This is the heart of why Aereo is at the Supreme Court trying to defend a situation that the Court created themselves. If Aereo can skip out on the fees, the cable and dish companies will follow suit immediately. And this is what has the broadcasters scared.

> Aereo can provide this service for so cheap because it's using someone else's content for free. They don't themselves create or provide anything users actually want to buy--they just distribute the work of other people, and do so without compensating the people who created the products that are actually in demand.

Imagine I pay Geek Squad, or some other handyman service, to come to my house and set up an antenna on my roof and hook it up to a DVR. I can't imagine anyone saying that either I or my handyman has done anything wrong.

What is Aereo doing that's different? The only difference is that the wire between the DVR and my television is longer.

> its Rube Goldberg machinations are clearly just away to sidestep the law.

It would be a whole lot easier for everyone involved if they could just use ONE antenna. The whole Rube Goldberg machinations are to comply with the law.

> The only difference is that the wire between the DVR and my television is longer.

Hardly. The major difference is who owns and controls the equipment, and what other equipment they own and control. By your reasoning the only difference between inviting my friends over to watch a DVD and a movie theater is that the latter involves a bigger screen and more "friends." It's the kind of reductionist argument that lawyers and engineers love but ring hollow in terms of common sense.

> The major difference is who owns and controls the equipment, and what other equipment they own and control.

OK, I rent my DVR from the cable company, surely you're as upset about that as you are about Aereo? Since the equipment is owned and controlled by a corporation that's not paying for the production of the television?

> By your reasoning the only difference between inviting my friends over to watch a DVD and a movie theater is that the latter involves a bigger screen and more "friends."

I don't see how this makes any sense or is relevant at all, sorry.

> OK, I rent my DVR from the cable company, surely you're as upset about that as you are about Aereo? Since the equipment is owned and controlled by a corporation that's not paying for the production of the television?

By that reasoning, a leased car is the same as a taxi.

> I don't see how this makes any sense or is relevant at all, sorry.

My point is that you're focusing on one dimension ("the length of the wire") and saying that two situations are analogous because they differ only in the quantity of that one dimension. But that's not the only way in which the two situations differ. Along other dimensions, there's a huge difference between a handyman installing an antenna in your house and Aereo streaming TV shows over the internet.

> Along other dimensions, there's a huge difference between a handyman installing an antenna in your house and Aereo streaming TV shows over the internet.

And yet you can't seem to articulate what the difference is, other than that DVDs are the same as taxis, or something.

A DVR, whether leased or purchased outright, as a piece of equipment totally under the control of an individual user, and present on the individual user's personal premises. Aereo does not provide "equipment rental." It provides a service using equipment that it owns and totally controls. In that sense, the difference between a rented DVR and Aereo's service is very similar to the difference between a leased car and a taxi cab.

Similarly, while you say that the "only difference" between Aereo's service and having your own antenna is the "length of the wire" that statement ignores all the other dimensions along which the two situations differ, and is reductionist in the same way as saying that the "only difference between a movie theater and watching a DVD with friends is the size of the screen and the number of friends. It's overly reductionist. The positioning in the market of the two experiences is totally different. The ownership structure and profit motive is totally different.

Your whole position depends on drawing these reductionist analogies and saying two situations are the same. Applying similar reasoning to other situations, however, shows that such reasoning leads to conclusions that defy common sense. Of course a leased car is not the same as a cab, and of course a movie night with friends is not the same as running a movie theater. But if you ignore ownership and control of the equipment and the market structure of the operation, as you are doing by analogizing Aereo to an "antenna with a long wire," then you can make such counterintuitive conclusions.

Does it help tonsay that Disney resisted the advent of home video because they would not be able to tell how many people were in the room watching the movie and thus would not be able to charge them?

So some people felt that a movie night with friends is exactly the same as running a cinema and wanted to charge everyone who was watching a screening.

> In that sense, the difference between a rented DVR and Aereo's service is very similar to the difference between a leased car and a taxi cab.

But the movie theater doesn't care if I take a taxi or drive my leased car. They don't even care if I steal a car and give rides to a bunch of my friends as long as we all buy a ticket.

The television companies don't want me to be able to take a taxi to their theater. I say it doesn't matter how I get there.

Have I muddled the analogies enough or should I keep going? Yes you are technically correct, there are other differences. What I'm saying is that none of the differences matter. Frankly the television companies should be embracing Aereo and anything else that makes it easier for them to pump their sugar commercials into our children's brains.

The differences between your a Geek Squad-installed DVR and Aereo:

- The GS DVR actually, physically exists and can be owned by the user. The Aereo DVR is a software service product (i.e., a SaaS, which cannot be owned).

- The antenna you own can be controlled by you--you can change its position, fix its location, or uninstall it. You cannot control the Aereo antenna, nor do you own it.

- The GS DVR connects to its source(s) and display directly. The Aereo DVR connects to its source over a multitude of cables and intervening hardware, and connects to the user's display over the internet, passing through numerous routers, switches, and hubs along the way.

- The data received over your antenna is unique to the specific reception qualities of your antenna. The Aereo antenna in your proposed single-antenna solution yields a common data stream. (This is the key legal turning point of the lawsuit.)

The problem is that they're not sidestepping the law, and that the law intentionally makes it daunting and complicated to fulfill this purpose.

In other words, the law was designed to make such a prospect so unappealing that nobody would ever broach it. Now that someone has, well ...

The law wasn't designed to allow this. That's absurd. The laws were written before any of this was possible by people who didn't conceive of this sort of company.

Of course it was. You're looking at it literally, as though it considered transcoders, etc. The 1 antenna per customer was very clearly conceived to prevent "disruptive" approaches to broadcast.

I think it was intended to erect a prohibitive barrier to any firm seeking entry. As it turns out, technical improvements have lowered that barrier such that it is no longer prohibitive--merely onerous.

It was literally beyond comprehension of the judges when the rules were formulated that anyone could possibly do what Aereo has done. And now that it has been done, the court has the option to either undermine precedent and the illusion of impartiality or to destroy an enormously remunerative revenue stream for a very generous and politically grateful industry.

Yes, precisely. When enacted, 1 antenna per customer was essentially saying "you can't practically do this."