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Comment by rhino369 | Hacker News Reader

One way to distinguish Aereo from Cablevision's cloud DVR is that Cablevision already had the rights to distribute the content.

Aereo has absolutely no right to distribute OTA broadcast signals.

The court can say that time-shifting content you are licensed to broadcast is allowed but time/place shifting unlicensed content is not.

I think the whole issue is sort of crazy. Aereo could probably license the content and distribute it cheaper without having to mess around with thousands and thousands of antennas.

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It doesn't really make sense for them to license the content, though. This content is being broadcast for free over radio. Aereo is providing the service of establishing a remote receiver for the public to pick up OTA broadcasts outside the transmission area.

At best you could make the argument that Aereo is acting in the capacity of a radio translator station, but it clearly doesn't fall under the same (FCC) rules since no radio rebroadcast is performed. The fact that it happens over the Internet is a mere implementation detail, one that is supported by the Cablevision case.

>Aereo is providing the service of establishing a remote receiver for the public to pick up OTA broadcasts outside the transmission area.

I was in the Aereo beta in Houston (I didn't keep it, found it kind of boring, fuzzy and laggy, and not matching how I watch OTA on multiple TVs at once). When I tried to watch a Houston OTA stream in San Antonio, I was politely told that that was not allowed. There is no technical reason this is not allowed, but I'd guess Aereo blocks this for now to keep the legal issues bounded.

"Aereo has absolutely no right to distribute OTA broadcast signals"

In the US, ones does not need an explicit "right" to do something that is legal. I don't even understand that way of thinking. We delegate powers to the government, we retain all rights to ourselves.

"If value, then right" basically:

http://www.authorama.com/free-culture-3.html

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