In The Legal Battle Between Aereo And Broadcasters, The DOJ Sides With The Incumbents

In the never-ending legal battle between internet TV startup Aereo and major network broadcasters, the DOJ has stepped in to voice its opposition toward Aereo’s streaming/DVR service.

The Department of Justice filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on Monday arguing that Aereo’s service infringes on the copyrights of broadcasters. The brief asked the Supreme Court to reverse the decisions made by the lower court that ruled in Aereo’s favor.

Aereo has been battling with broadcasters across the country including NYC, Boston and Utah, and in each case has (mostly) remained victorious in their argument. Recently, broadcasters asked the Supreme Court to pick up the case, which would end the matter once and for all. The hearing is set to begin on April 22.

The issue: Broadcasters believe that Aereo is stealing their signals out of the air and rebroadcasting those signals to consumers unlawfully. However, Aereo works very similarly to a regular set of rabbit ears above a TV. Because each Aereo user has their own remote antenna that records their very own copy of various programs, the startup has been consistently successful in court.

In fact, a ruling against Aereo is said to have averse affects on cloud computing as a whole.

The DOJ’s briefing, however, says that there is no threat to cloud computing/remote DVR if Aereo loses. Instead, the threat Aereo poses to the law is that users can “gain access to copyrighted content in the first instance — the same service that cable companies have traditionally provided.”

However, that would also mean that a company selling rabbit ears or antennas is also indirectly breaking the law.

Deputy Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler wrote the following in his brief: “Because

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Aereo stops taking new customers in New York

Aereo launched in New York in early 2012 to let people watch over-the-air TV on their gadgets, but a recent hiccup means denizens of the Big Apple can no longer sign up for the service. The culprit? Aereo says it all comes down to capacity, or lack thereof. The service has hit a bottleneck, so it can't take on more customers until it's beefed up its network of tiny antennas and the infrastructure that binds everything together. Word of the situation started making the rounds early this morning, and it wasn't long before Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia took to Twitter to confirm the bad news, though he remained awfully mum on when New Yorkers could start signing up again.

This isn't far from the first headache that Aereo has dealt with since it launched two years ago. It's been sued a by slew of networks that aren't keen on the startup's video-streaming mission, and the Supreme Court is getting close to passing a ruling on the matter. At least this time Aereo is a victim of its own success instead of just being a courtroom punching bag.

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Via: Ars Technica

Source: DSLReports, Twitter

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Aereo Sells Out Of Capacity In NYC

Aereo, a TV streaming service looking to change the way we consume media, has just sold out of capacity in New York City.

Founder and CEO Chet Kanojia confirmed the news via Twitter.

The company launched in 2011 with NYC as a pilot market, and has since expanded to 11 markets total. The service, much to the chagrin of major network broadcasters, acts as a remote, mini antenna, letting subscribers pull OTA TV signals out of the air and stream them live across any internet-connected device.

And if that wasn’t enough, users have the option to use Aereo as a remote DVR service for as low as $8 month.

That said, Aereo has worked tirelessly to ensure that this type of business is actually legal. In much the same way that it’s legal for an individual to use rabbit ears to access broadcast television, it’s legal for an Aereo user to rent out an individual Aereo antenna and access, or record, TV content.

However, a single antenna that sends a signal to multiple, separate users is illegal. In other words, Aereo needs one antenna available for every active user of the service, and at this point, there’s simply not any room left for new users in NYC.

Some have misreported that this is a product of power issues, though recent conversations I’ve had with founder Chet Kanojia suggest that Aereo has been trying to build out more capacity to keep up with subscriber growth.

For a startup, it’s not a bad problem to have. Though, if the company wants to foster growth in its first, and likely strongest, market, it will need to offer extended capacity as quickly as possible.

Broadcasters must be equally displeased by this news, considering that they’ve been bullying Aereo in the courtroom since the service launched. It started with a lawsuit in NY, which migrated to Boston, and again to Utah, until most recently the Supreme Court decided to hear the case and make a final, federal ruling.

Based on the track record, I predict Aereo will win in court and will lead the revolution as a stepping stone from bundled TV packages and middle men to an on-demand, TV consumption structure.

Here’s Aereo’s official statement on the matter:

We’re fortunate that Aereo continues to experience strong growth across all our markets. Our team has been working overtime to add more capacity in our existing markets. As soon as additional capacity is added, new consumers will be notified that they can sign up and create an Aereo account.

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Aereo Apologizes To Customers Affected By Service Outage During Golden Globes

Aereo, the streaming TV startup backed by media mogul Barry Diller, has apologized for a brief service outage tonight. The outage only lasted about an hour, but was especially unfortunate because it coincided with the Golden Globes.

“Aereo experienced a partial outage in New York City tonight, which impacted a small group of users who were unable to access their accounts. Our engineers have worked to resolve the issue. We are truly sorry for the inconvenience and encourage any Aereo members impacted by the outage to reach out to support

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