Supreme Court hear arguments on Aereo case 22 April

Aereo has started a public website Protect my Antenna to make their side of the case.

The so called Betamax Case iwith ruling on January 17, 1984, is the case where decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled that the making of individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time shifting does not constitute copyright infringement, but is fair use.

More recently, the Remote Storage DVR System (RS-DVR) case refers to Cablevision's practice beginning March 2006 to making such a system available to their customers in Long Island. Cablevision notified its content providers, including plaintiffs, of its plans to offer RS-DVR, but it did not seek any license from them to operate or sell the RS-DVR.

Cablevision won that case, but plunging prices in hard drives convinced them it would be easier to simply sell home based DVR's. It was never argued on the Supreme Court level.

The Cablevision case convinced the founders of AEREO that they could win a case if they added "remote antennas" to such a system, and sold not just DVR service but the ability to stream live over the air TV to the computers. They restricted their service to only stations that broadcast in a designated market area.


Many people are interested in this case who are not interested in this particular service. They just wonder about the consequences to exchange of information. It may have consequences to online gambling.

Quote: Pacomartin

The Cablevision case convinced the founders of AEREO that they could win a case if they added "remote antennas" to such a system, and sold not just DVR service but the ability to stream live over the air TV to the computers. They restricted their service to only stations that broadcast in a designated market area.

A cloud based DVR service for Over the Air Television has been revived. SimpleTV was a kickstarter campaign to sell devices for a few hundred dollars, but their business was destroyed by TiVo OTA and Tablo TV. Now SimpleTV is going to introduce a cloud based service that will allow customers to avoid having to lay down money to purchase equipment. The new service will be called Showdrive.



Aereo was charging $8 for a combined antenna and 20 hours of DVR service. SimpleTV's new service to begin in the UK will be £5 for 1000 hours of DVR service, but you must use your own antenna. Only OTA television will be recordable.

1) Time shifting and watching TV on tablets will be the number one market.
2) Secondary use will be fast forwarding through commercials
3) But coordinating with friends in other cities will probably be done. Watching out of market football games. This usage will probably result in legal issues.

Although technology exists to do this today, it involves fairly large outlays of cash and often a monthly fee. The low monthly fee may make this a disruptive technology, both for broadcast & cable.