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Today the US Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of over-the-air television broadcasters versus Aereo, which picks up those OTA signals and delivers them to paying customers by streaming them over the Internet.
At issue is whether Aereo should pay broadcasters for the right to transmit those signals, as cable and satellite TV providers must do, which is what the broadcasters want. Aereo claims that it doesn't have to do this, because it uses "farms" of thousands of individual dime-size antennas that are each "rented" to individual customers, and therefore they can pick up the signals for free just like I can with the antenna on my roof.
Supreme Court quizzes Aereo: Do TV streams break the law? (CNN)
What I want to know is: if you take one of those dime-size antennas out on the street outside the Aereo facility, will it actually pick up a useful signal? If it relies on the presence of all those other antennas nearby, in some sort of collective resonance phenomenon, is it really a "single individual antenna" like the one on my roof?
I'm sure there a lot of other people who don't know the difference!
At issue is whether Aereo should pay broadcasters for the right to transmit those signals, as cable and satellite TV providers must do, which is what the broadcasters want. Aereo claims that it doesn't have to do this, because it uses "farms" of thousands of individual dime-size antennas that are each "rented" to individual customers, and therefore they can pick up the signals for free just like I can with the antenna on my roof.
Supreme Court quizzes Aereo: Do TV streams break the law? (CNN)
What I want to know is: if you take one of those dime-size antennas out on the street outside the Aereo facility, will it actually pick up a useful signal? If it relies on the presence of all those other antennas nearby, in some sort of collective resonance phenomenon, is it really a "single individual antenna" like the one on my roof?
Justice Antonin Scalia, on the other hand, seemed not to understand the difference between television networks that are beamed over the public airwaves, like ABC, and those that are only available through cable subscriptions, like HBO.
Scallia's hypothetical question to Frederick -- in the future, "you could take HBO, right?" -- earned him some ribbing on blogs after the court session.
I'm sure there a lot of other people who don't know the difference!