By this logic, nobody will be able to make money by licensing the public spectrum and using it to deliver ad-supported content. Anyone with an antenna farm like Aereo will be able to capture, store and redistribute those feeds -- and why not modify them to skip commercials too? Anyone with a device containing 300M antennas can claim to be able to intermediate service for all Americans.
This is not, in and of itself, a reason why Aereo is wrong in this case. Plus, I think it's pretty clear that free OTA's days are numbered anyway. But Aereo would, I think, be attempting here to kill its host.
> This is not, in and of itself, a reason why Aereo is wrong in this case. Plus, I think it's pretty clear that free OTA's days are numbered anyway. But Aereo would, I think, be attempting here to kill its host.
I'm not going to cry too hard about that. Ad-supported content can move to IP, and we can stop wasting all that spectrum for broadcast and move it to mobile data services, which are willing to pay much more for that valuable spectrum.
Disclaimer: I (sort of) work in the broadcast industry, but on the Internet/IP side of the house.
I the current age it makes much more sense to do away with broadcast television/radio services and reclaim the spectrum for wireless data services. You can still have 'broadcast' stations over data connections if you like. It's the same logic I would apply to 'channels' on cable and voice traffic on cellular. All of these things can be done more efficiently, data wise, by replacing them with data connections and on-demand usage.
I'm not following. It seems to me that Aereo increases the reach of broadcasters, so their ability to deliver ad-supported content appears not just unharmed, but improved. Their inclusion of Tivo-ish features is no worse than actual Tivos, which are still legal.
This is not, in and of itself, a reason why Aereo is wrong in this case. Plus, I think it's pretty clear that free OTA's days are numbered anyway. But Aereo would, I think, be attempting here to kill its host.