So the US Supreme Court, on a 6:3 majority only, have ruled that Aereo is illegal. It reverses a lower court decision in favour of Aereo on appeal.
Aereo, as you'll note in other blog posts here, was the online re-broadcaster of TV stations content based on a 8/10 Dollar monthly subscription.
Had the ruling gone the other way (in favour of Aereo) it could have spelt the end of TV.
This is potentially a fatal blow to the online service.
The problem was copyright violation and the fact that Aereo, by supplying some kit (an aerial etc), it was something different than simply "re broadcasting". Almost like a Video recorded function which was a key Aereo argument.
After all, video recorders re-broadcast content?
Anyway, losing means losing big.
For Aereo to survive now, it will now have to negotiate fees with those broadcasters who've been through court against them. And then, probably at a prohibitive price.....if at all. I don't think they'd even enter the conversation.
It does not affect the likes of Netflix or other streaming services. Equally it won't affect cloud services which store copyrighted content.
I have to say it reminded me of the whole furore over Sean Parker's Napster. It was the fastest growing business one-time with music downloads which the court shut-down.
And then along came Itunes and Parker returned with Spotify. Today he's worth circa 2 Billion usd.
So perhaps Aereo lost today and TV won. But then, perhaps it's only a matter of time......
The US Supreme Court might decide the future of Television, today.
Aereo, a start-up, rebroadcasts TV content like Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS on the basis that those signals are free and in turn it charges customers to watch them (about 8 usd a month).
Subscribers can watch, record and see a lot of content on their various devices.
But cable companies like Time Warner and Comcast, pay those broadcasters billions, to be allowed re-broadcast their content. They in turn sell it on to consumers as part of a cable subscription (like Sky).
Broadcasters have sued Aereo on the basis of copyright infringement. However, if Aereo's model is found to be legal, this will be a dramatic day for cable companies and for traditional TV broadcasters.
If Aereo loses, it might have to shut down. If it wins....re-broadcasting free signals is now going to expand and perhaps broadcasters will be forced to do it themselves and by-pass cable.
For example, NFL (America Football) would overnight be "free to air" through re-broadcasters online.
But of course, the bigger picture is copyright and as to who owns it and what rights the copyright holder has.
However, the even hugely bigger picture is that TV Broadcasters have now to resort to legal actions to defend their business. Always the sure sign that technology has overtaken them. And it has.
Fox, that great bastion of free right wing media (actually, I watch it a lot so I mean that tongue-in-cheek) are threatening to come off "free to air" and to move towards cable or pay-per-view.
In other words, just be available to subscribers.
And the reason? Online IPTV re-broadcasters (in this case 'Aereo' in particular) whom are offering live Fox and CBS and ABC and others online for free. They're simply, re-sending the TV signals online for a small fee. And the courts have upheld their right to do so. It would seem that these re-broadcasters have set themselves up exactly within the limits of existing laws.
So no need for an antenna or set-top box, you can now see Fox online through Aereo and that's what's bothering Fox. Aereo also allows you to record programmes in the cloud and of course, is available on multi-platforms to watch "as you go".
It means that traditional TV Companies are now losing control of their signal, their content and ultimately, their advertising. So if Fox became subscriber only, it would starve IPTV such as Aereo, of content. But then too, it would lose its advertising revenue because numbers of viewers would dramatically reduce.
It would also cause problems for affiliates of Fox (such as Sky) who may no longer get access to that content either.
IPTV is a threat to broadcasters - of that, there's no doubt.
However, one wonders why they don't join the party and develop their own IPTV strategy? In other words, come together as an online brand and compete.
So many times, we've seen online destroy businesses who sat back and depended on legal action rather than, get into the space and fight. This to me, looks like another example.
Feels a bit like a Fox episode of The Simpsons.
