[opendtv] Re: Broadcasters Ask Supreme Court to Intervene Over Aereo
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2013 10:38:28 -0400
On Oct 14, 2013, at 10:13 AM, Mark Schubin <tvmark@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> The Slingbox model is very clearly a personal one: the user's individual
> Slingbox deliver's one stream to the user.
>
> Aereo's claim is that they use individual antennas for each subscriber.
> Every engineer I know believes they use an antenna array that splits the
> signals to all subscribers, making them more like a cable system than like
> Slingbox.
>
> Unfortunately for the broadcasters, they didn't have any of those engineers
> testify in the first trial. Once there's a court decision, it's very tough
> to get appellate courts to consider new basic facts; the appeals process is
> geared towards errors of legal process.
>
Clearly Mark has his finger on the key point, but he raises another issue that
the courts may not have considered. Is it the antenna or the tuner that must be
personal?
Many residential building in NYC have community antennas, perhaps even Mark's
building. One antenna array makes signals available to everyone in the
building. But the residents use their personal TVs/tuners to receive these
broadcasts. I'm not aware of broadcasters every being concerned about this
reality.
If Aereo uses a master antenna to feed individual tuners, I doubt that there is
a copyright violation.
Regards
Craig
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