NFL, MLB To Supremes: If Aereo Wins, Broadcasters Lose

[osu1991]

NFL, MLB To Supremes: If Aereo Wins, Broadcasters Lose

http://www.multichannel.com/distribution/nfl-mlb-supremes-if-aereo-wins-broadcasters-lose/146722

Forget sports siphoning to pay TV. If Aereo wins its court case, the floodgates will open and the World Series, Super Bowl and probably the regular seasons of pro baseball and football will be moving to ESPN, TNT and other pay outlets.

That was the message from Major League Baseball and the NFL to the Supreme Court in an amicus supporting a broadcaster effort to block Aereo's online TV station delivery service.

 

[Neutron]

How is this any different from OTA??

 

[Kraven]

I'd like to see that happen. there's already starting to be some backlash about overpaid athletes that if pro-sports want to move their entire programming to paid TV... go ahead and alienate the fans even more.

1- Contacts will have to be lowered because stations like ESPN wont have enough $$$ to buy all of the pie (NFL, ESPN, NHL, MLB etc)
2- Network advertisers will have a S***
3- There arent enough sports stations to cover this.
4- ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPN4, ESPN5, ESPN6 and ESPN7 will increase viewers monthly billing = fan backlash

Go ahead and bite the hand that feeds you. Reasons like these is why am getting more turned off by pro- sports.

Articles like these make me glad I cut the cord.

Cheers, K

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

So is the MLB and NFL saying to the Supreme court... "Sure we understand it might be legal, but we want the Supreme court to look the other way and vote it illegal?"

I don't know about you, but if I am watching an event like the Superbowl or World Series, I am watching on the best quality possible, not on some online streaming service!

 

[Kraven]

And another point... Not too sure what the NFL is complaining about...as it ain't doing that bad for a non-profit organization with over 9 billion in revenue last year... all of it being tax free

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

And its not like people are wathing out of market games, since Aereo only services the DMA you are in... you can't watch outside the DMA.

 

[osu1991]

It sounds like the broadcasters are getting everyone to throw out harebrained ideas hoping one of them will stick. I don't know how they came up with the out of market statement and thought that would have an validity

 

[Kraven]

Am guesing the beef is ratings. With Areo, it decreases actual/live network viewers..resulting in lower advertising dollars.

 

[Kraven]

http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/18/technology/nfl-mlb-aereo/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

 

[mike123abc]

So is the MLB and NFL saying to the Supreme court... "Sure we understand it might be legal, but we want the Supreme court to look the other way and vote it illegal?"

I don't know about you, but if I am watching an event like the Superbowl or World Series, I am watching on the best quality possible, not on some online streaming service!

They are just worried that if the networks do not continue to get retransmission fees they may not be able to outbid cable channels for the game rights.

 

[Teehar]

Stupid of NFL and MLB.What do they think will happen to the networks if they remove their games completely from them?It will certainly hurt the networks more than NFL and MLB.Last time I checked most of MLB regular season games are on cable channels anyway.

 

[mikew]

For MLB, I sometimes get one game per week OTA. I seriously doubt the NFL would attempt a move to be completely off the OTA grid. Good for Aereo to get the conversation started. If they come to Phoenix, I'll buy the product just to support them. I already have Sling, so I don't need the service.

 

[Kraven]

I say go ahead and switch to cable... i'll just go to the pub and watch em there if i have to.

 

[Tampa8]

I don't take kindly to threats................... They are "forcing" me to get Aereo when it comes to my area, just to spite them. What the Supreme court should be doing is throwing out any re transmission fees for Affiliates.

 

[mike123abc]

I don't take kindly to threats................... They are "forcing" me to get Aereo when it comes to my area, just to spite them. What the Supreme court should be doing is throwing out any re transmission fees for Affiliates.

Congress passed a law signed by the President allowing retransmission fees. This is not something that the Supreme Court can just throw out. The retransmissions fees are for a blanket copyright exemption. Remember the programming is all owned, and is NOT public domain, even though it is broadcast for free OTA. The local into local retransmission fees cable and satellite fees are negotiated by the parties, the laws allow them to do this and not violate copyrights. Someone for example that owns the song rights played during a show cannot sue a cable company for violating their copyright because they are rebroadcasting the show over cable from the network, it is covered by the blanket copyright exemption allowed by the laws (one for cable one for satellite).

The question that the courts will eventually have to decide is if you rent an antenna and a DVR to someone, and send this transmission over the internet are you retransmitting the copyrighted material, or is the individual retransmitting the program. Right now it is all preliminary injunctions, eventually there will be a trial, and I assumed appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. It could easily be decided that since Aereo does not have an agreement with the networks they are infringing on the copyrights.

CVC had a retransmission agreement with the networks in its network DVR case and it was decided that it was not an infringement, but this could have been viewed as being covered under the contract they already had with the networks.

Sling, since the boxes are owned by the individuals and in their homes could definitely argue that it is all user controlled, and of course the right to put up your own antenna has long been decided.

The Aereo question of course will be if all are done by a third party and "rented" to the individual, is it the individual doing it or is it the third party...