FOX Thinks Aereo = DISH Anywhere

[ronjohn]

Am I the only one that beleives dish is going to win this one? I don't see the comparison. I understand how you can say they both stream, but the fact is dish has the rights for retransmission. You can not use more than 3 tuners on one hopper to stream to one DA account. Aereo, to the best of my knowledge, was not paying anything for retransmission. The person subscribed to the channel that dish pays fox for(subscriber), is the only one technically allowed to use DA. Hence the limit on authorized devices. Aereo did not hold any of these restrictions(again to the best of my knowledge). They are worlds apart

The big problem is that the SCOTUS basically said in the Aereo decision that the actual text of the law is not important. Dish pays Fox for a license to transmit Fox programming from Dish's facilities to the consumer. According to Fox, they do not have a license for any secondary transmission of that programming. SCOTUS said that Aereo was directly responsible for the transmission of signals from the equipment leased to and controlled by their customers. Most of the HWS that are Slinging programming are owned by Dish and leased to consumers, so according to the way SCOTUS decided, Dish is transmitting that signal, not the consumer.

I do think Dish will win. Even if they do not, Dish should win. The big problem is that SCOTUS ignored the actual law and decided that Aereo kind of looks like something else, so it should be stopped. If Fox convinces the court that Dish owns a lot of HWS that are transmitting Fox programming to other locations without a license, they could win. They should not, but the Aereo decision produced more questions than answers.

 

[ChadT41]

On that logic. Dish owns the space on the servers(or atleast leases, rents or whatever the correct terminology would be), that houses dish anywhere. So it's a user transmitting from a dish server that is paid for by the subscription fee. That dish pays back to fox. So even with that, that would be my "loophole". Only SCOTUS could screw that one up.

 

[ronjohn]

The problem with that is the secondary transmission begins at the HWS. So it is a secondary transmission, not a primary transmission from Dish to the subscriber. I don't even know for sure if the license from Fox does indeed prohibit a secondary transmission. As far as I know, Dish and Fox keep their contracts secret.

As to looking for loopholes for either side, SCOTUS pretty much said that none exist. If the legislature passes bad laws, the courts will just decide what the legislature should have passed and make the law themselves.

 

[ChadT41]

I know your are mostly right, but I still hold faith that the judicial system will do the right thing(let me have my faith. Lol.) and say fox is absolutely dumb and stretching, again.

 

[mike123abc]

I know your are mostly right, but I still hold faith that the judicial system will do the right thing(let me have my faith. Lol.) and say fox is absolutely dumb and stretching, again.

I do think Dish will win in the end, but FOX will not give up easily and could score some victories along the way.

 

[ronjohn]

I know your are mostly right, but I still hold faith that the judicial system will do the right thing(let me have my faith. Lol.) and say fox is absolutely dumb and stretching, again.

I wish the judicial system had done the right thing and deferred to Congress the responsibility of fixing the Aereo loophole. Most people understand general fairness, and abide by it. Some laws passed by the legislature have been so broad that lawyers and prosecutors can make almost any action illegal. Now the courts are ignoring the specifics of narrowly written laws.

I believe the broadcasters are fighting to extend the large profitability of a dying business model. If the broadcasters had not been engaging in such activity for the last several years, I think we would have already had over the top services without a cable or sat company. Companies like Disney could still require subscribing to all of the Disney, ABC, and ESPN channels, but people could decide that paying for ESPN to get Disney for their kids is too much and subscribe to the Nick instead. The bundled packages model is going to die, but the broadcasters are going to fight it as long as they can.