Supreme Court Rules Against Aereo

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Wednesday June 25, 2014 · 9:50 AM PDT

2014/06/25 · 09:50

The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that Aereo has to stop streaming TV broadcasters transmissions. Since I've yet to see a diary on this, I thought I'd throw something together quickly (I've been around for a long time, but this is my first diary so please be kind).

Aereo had thought they had identified a loophole in the law as they were streaming to each user from their own dedicated antenna, but the majority didn't accept this argument. On narrow legal grounds, I'm not sure I'm qualified to evaluate the ruling, but morally, shouldn't there be a principle that anything broadcast over the public airwaves is in the public domain (at least at the time of broadcast)? Why do we give these TV networks so much (essentially) free bandwidth when they are unwilling to allow people to get access to their broadcasts on similar terms in areas where their signals don't reach?

I find myself, awkwardly enough, agreeing with Alito, Scalia, and Thomas in this case, and I find it interesting that the liberal members of the court all took the side of narrow copyright absolutism in a situation where the law seems rather ambiguous. I'm curious to know where the good people of Daily Kos stand on this.

Poll

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Was Aereo stealing TV broadcaster's hard earned monies?

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Was Aereo stealing TV broadcaster's hard earned monies?

Yes

17 votes

27 votes

I don't watch TV so I don't care about any of this

6 votes

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