How long before Aereo decision gets the broadcasters after tools like Tablo?

I really think the court made a bad decision with Aereo today. Even worse makes me wonder when the broadcasters will come after DVRs like Tivo, SLingbox, Tablo, WMC, etc…  



:frowning:

The Supreme Court decision makes perfect sense to me, and there are no implications to Tablo for the simple reason that there is no revenue gained or implied by my content that resides on my hard drive in my home.  Tablo is not selling the streaming content, they are selling the hardware that allows recording of content.  The issue with Aereo was they were not offering OTA content at all.  Once the content was recorded to their servers for rebroadcast over the internet for a fee payable only to Aereo, copyright laws come into play.  If you start charging a fee for users access to your Tablo, then you would be subject to the same laws that took Aereo down.   To me, this is a major win for companies like Tablo, Tivo, SlingBox, SimpleTV and so on.


Aereo decision is unfortunate, but there wasn’t a question in my mind how it was going to go (That is why I bought a Tablo even when living in Aereo’s footprint).  


As far as how Tablo and Tivo are effected, they aren’t.  It’s two different things, and the right to DVR for personal use is settled law all the way back form the days of VCR and Betamax…

Tablo simply allows you to pick up OTA signal and distribute it through your home or other devices you own.  The only issue would be the DVR aspect.  But why would it be any different for other cable and sat providers?  I don’t think their distribution rights include anything with DVR functionality.  You’re just not allowed to broadcast it to anyone.

The Supreme Court has already ruled that DVR’s at home are perfectly legal.   While I am disappointed in this ruling, it really does help out Nuvyyo and us Tablo users.  Now we shouldn’t fear the broadcasters taking away OTA signals (CBS threatened to do that if Aereo won), and at home products like the Tablo may sell better than ever without the competition from Aereo.



Then any ability for you to copy the files from a DVR’d event will be blocked 100%!

Well, you can watch Tablo anywhere, and that may be a violation of what the supreme court decided about Aereo. And that is what scares me :wink:

Remote streaming of your own content was never at issue with this court decision.  Recording OTA signals in your own home was never an issue either. The issue was strictly limited to companies that charge a monthly fee to access streaming or stored content on their servers without paying royalty fees to the broadcasters.    That said, Aereo may have the ability to continue its business model if they can negotiate a reasonable price for the rights to rebroadcast the original OTA content, but I’m pretty sure that will not happen.

@Jetstep, remote viewing is limited to a device that has been on your home network, and even then you can only do a limited number of devices at any time.  So I am not real worried about that. 


I was worried the Supreme Court would go to far and ban all remote streaming, but they didn’t appear to do that. So if you put music or movies on the “cloud” and then play it back on other devices, you should be fine.

Since large companies like DirecTv and Dish struggle mightily to keep carriage fees reasonable, I can’t imagine a tiny company  like Aereo having any luck doing it.



@snowcat yea I agree with you, but I think because of this ruling it may open the door for more suits in the future and that can hurt many companies, regardless of the limited ruling. Even Justice Scalia’s dissent makes me think so, 

Scalia said. "It is the role of good lawyers to identify and exploit them, and the role of Congress to eliminate them if it wishes. Congress can do that ... in a much more targeted, better informed, and less disruptive fashion that the crude 'looks-like-cable-TV' solution the court invents today."

@Mick @snowcat, I don’t think Aereo will be able to continue business with the rates the broadcasters will want. It is exactly the reason I jumped ship. With CBS alone they wanted something like $2 per subscriber per month from TWC. Add that with the others and there goes that monthly bill again. 


Recurring Billing is what they all want. I still remember not having a recurring TV bill, a recurring internet bill, or a recurring cell phone bill :wink: Of course that dates me :stuck_out_tongue:

I don’t think Tablo has anythign to worry about.  They are no different than Tivo and the like.  They capture OTA on an antenna you OWN and store it, encrypted sorta kinda in HLS segments on the HDD.  if you take that drive and try and access it directly you cannot without much effort.  Its possible after jumping through some hoops, but not doable to the avg user.  just like Tivo.  someone with know how can rip the “protected” content off of the hdd and access it.


That being said i don’t see how in any way they could go after Tablo.  If they did they would also have to go after Tivo, ChannelMaster, and every single OTA tuner card availalbe on the market for a pc… Silicondust… etc.

not a concern in my opinion, but what do i know.

I also agree with @jbanks25 - I went with Tablo because the aereo model, while nice, i don’t think stands a chance.  while i agree with what they are doing, i do’nt think they will ever win in the courts.  I also like the idea of being able to watch my content offline without having to connect to the network aside from guide data

Think there is more of a concern that Netflix, Satellite providers, Cable Providers, Amazon or Hulu stake holders buying out Tablo. Netflix could implement it’s peer to peer & content cache quite easily and overcome network peering disagreements slowing down user experience and add all of Tablo’s features to their offerings, ouch.

@ChrisWilkes , that is an interesting thought. Not sure I would like the broadcast providers doing that, but maybe the others. But very interesting thinking.

Hi guys - this decision doesn’t affect Tablo in any way and may even benefit us by sending Aereo customers our way when the service is stopped. 


The only downside we see is if people misunderstand this ruling and think that ALL OTA HDTV is now illegal which is untrue. We’re working really hard to make sure people know the truth so we can continue growing the cord cutting revolution!

Yep, it was a bit of a double edged sword.  It made more people aware of free OTA, but the decision (if not viewed correctly), could chase some away.  I gotta believe though, if you really are thinking of cutting the cord, you’re intelligent enough to do a little reading.


In any event, Aereo stood alone precisely because of what they did and how they did it.

Just a FYI, it has started


http://gizmodo.com/the-aereo-ruling-is-already-being-used-against-other-sm-1597059533?rev=1403889715&utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

@Jestep, FOX sounds desperate.  They already lost their case against Dish, and the 9th circuit court of appeals  refused to listen to them in January.  For whatever reason, FOX has another round of oral arguments on this case with the 9th circuit, and they will bring this up.  But I would be really surprised it the 9th circuit does anything new.



@snowcat I agree, but I knew it would give some hope to the broadcasters to do this and that cost just flows right down to people who have NOT cut the cord :stuck_out_tongue: