WWTBAM Bored

In a 6-3 ruling today, the Supreme Court said that Aereo's master antenna service, which allowed people in certain cities including Atlanta to rent a miniature antenna at Aereo's central facility, record incoming programming and have it transmitted via the internet to their homes for nearly instantaneous reception violated the Copyright Act as a "rebroadcast" requiring approval from the networks whose content was being transmitted. With Aereo, people could only watch over-the-air channels and others like Bloomberg who provided their content free of charge to Aereo, for either $8 or $12 a month (depending on the recording capabilities of the built in DVR). As of now, my Aereo service still works, but who knows what they will do.

In two other technology based rulings today, the Court ruled unanimously that police need a warrant to search either a smartphone or the more old-fashioned flip cellphones if they are in the possession of a suspect who is arrested. Previously, the court had ruled that suspects could be searched for weapons or contraband (like drugs) for security reasons incident to an arrest and those were admissible without a warrant. However, the Court said that there was no such safety concern with a cellphone and took notice that people put lots of highly sensitive information on these devices to which they have expectations of privacy.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote the cellphone decisions. Justice Breyer wrote the Aereo decision, and Scalia, Thomas, and Alito dissented. Ironically, this is one of the few occasions on which I am in agreement with the conservatives in this type of split decision.

I think this hinges on Aereo's hubris. If all they provided was an amplified antenna service, I'd bet they'd still be in business. Because they have a built-in DVR, which accounts for the "rebroadcast" part, & transmit via the internet, they are offering additional services. There may be room out there for a company that just wants to provide you amped-up antenna service for over-the-air channels. Even if they get it to you over the internet? Was that part of the "killer" in the Supremes' decision?

I assume that if you have a live feed running over the internet, you could hook up something to it to record it.

(Hey, I am still the one with no internet at home, recording off-the-air via converter boxes & VCRs; we know it can be done! And is legal.)


Time Warner, which is the exclusive cable provider for my cousin's (& currently my sister's) part of Manhattan at the very least, is screwing what they put out further & further. None of the extension devices that they provide to get stuff into another room work. These are their own devices; they should work on their system.

If you contact Verizon, hoping to switch to a FIOS service for internet, they tell you they will have to switch your landline as well to FIOS. Which my sister does not want, so currently internet TV stuff is not an option for her.


The condo does not allow any satellite services; no cables exterior to the building.

And to make matters worse, my sister's DVD recorder, working off a regular (indoor) antenna she was desperate enough to buy, provides a squashed picture on playback of recorded material. DVD recorder didn't do that to Time Warner's cable feed, at least, when it used to work.

All this stuff worked perfectly off of Buckeye Cable in Ohio, of course. Who knows if, due to their own "upgrades", it still would.

ghostjmf wrote:I think this hinges on Aereo's hubris. If all they provided was an amplified antenna service, I'd bet they'd still be in business. Because they have a built-in DVR, which accounts for the "rebroadcast" part, & transmit via the internet, they are offering additional services. There may be room out there for a company that just wants to provide you amped-up antenna service for over-the-air channels. Even if they get it to you over the internet? Was that part of the "killer" in the Supremes' decision?

I assume that if you have a live feed running over the internet, you could hook up something to it to record it.

(Hey, I am still the one with no internet at home, recording off-the-air via converter boxes & VCRs; we know it can be done! And is legal.)


Time Warner, which is the exclusive cable provider for my cousin's (& currently my sister's) part of Manhattan at the very least, is screwing what they put out further & further. None of the extension devices that they provide to get stuff into another room work. These are their own devices; they should work on their system.

If you contact Verizon, hoping to switch to a FIOS service for internet, they tell you they will have to switch your landline as well to FIOS. Which my sister does not want, so currently internet TV stuff is not an option for her.


The condo does not allow any satellite services; no cables exterior to the building.

And to make matters worse, my sister's DVD recorder, working off a regular (indoor) antenna she was desperate enough to buy, provides a squashed picture on playback of recorded material. DVD recorder didn't do that to Time Warner's cable feed, at least, when it used to work.

All this stuff worked perfectly off of Buckeye Cable in Ohio, of course. Who knows if, due to their own "upgrades", it still would.

The Aereo decision was because the Supremes didn't understand the technology. Whether that was the fault of the attorneys of the Supremes I'll leave to those who heard the arguments to opine.

You don't need to switch your landline when you get FiOS; you can get just Internet and TV. You'll wind up paying more in total however. Why not switch?

Bob Juch wrote: The Aereo decision was because the Supremes didn't understand the technology. Whether that was the fault of the attorneys of the Supremes I'll leave to those who heard the arguments to opine.

Aereo didn't provide anything that people couldn't do for themselves with a powerful enough antenna and a DVR. The only channels people get with Aereo are over-the-air channels and some that voluntarily put themselves on Aereo at no cost. You can't get HBO or ESPN through Aereo; you need to subscribe to cable or satellite TV for which HBO and ESPN charge the cable or satellite company which in turn charges the customer.

Frankly, I wouldn't have subscribed to Aereo except for the fact that our reception in the bathroom and kitchen were so terrible once the local stations switched to digital broadcasts that we couldn't watch TV in there, which Mrs. SSS likes to do.

One more thing. Aereo isn't a fly-by-night operation. They've got some powerful people behind them, including Barry Diller, and they joined the broadcasters in suggesting the Supreme Court review the lower court decisions in their favor. I've got to think that Aereo has a backup plan, which might include paying a few dollars a month to the broadcasters to continue. The broadcast networks should realize that they are bleeding viewers to cable channels left and right, and a service like Aereo, which helps to lock subscribers into network programming, is to their benefit rather than drive even more people to cable, satellite and internet alternatives.

BJ says:

You don't need to switch your landline when you get FiOS; you can get just Internet and TV. You'll wind up paying more in total however. Why not switch?

You should not need to do anything to your landline. However, Verizon in my cousin's part of Manhattan won't install FIOS for internet & TV without disabling the Verizon landline & adding Verizon FIOS phone service. That's their rules. Believe me on this. You'd think they'd want her internet & TV business.


My sister doesn't want to disable my cousin's landline for the same reason I don't want to disable mine, here in the Boston area; we both have no confidence in replacement services during local disasters. My cousin's landline worked during Sandy. More importantly, for all of the week following Sandy. Couldn't say that for anything else in the building (including the Time Warner cable, which literally burned out when that power station went).

from article: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/bus ... /11352989/

The justices found Aereo's cloud DVR feature – in which customers can record shows on Aereo's servers, watch almost in real time and even skip commercials – particularly troublesome.

"Rather than directly send the data to the subscriber, a server saves the data in a subscriber-specific folder on Aereo's hard drive," Breyer noted. "Aereo's system creates a subscriber-specific copy — that is, a 'personal' copy — of the subscriber's program of choice."

Like I said, hubris. If Aereo had just sent their amped-up signal out "live" & let the subscriber work on getting their own copy made, I bet the fight would not have reached this stage.

ghostjmf wrote:BJ says:

You don't need to switch your landline when you get FiOS; you can get just Internet and TV. You'll wind up paying more in total however. Why not switch?

You should not need to do anything to your landline. However, Verizon in my cousin's part of Manhattan won't install FIOS for internet & TV without disabling the Verizon landline & adding Verizon FIOS phone service. That's their rules. Believe me on this. You'd think they'd want her internet & TV business.


My sister doesn't want to disable my cousin's landline for the same reason I don't want to disable mine, here in the Boston area; we both have no confidence in replacement services during local disasters. My cousin's landline worked during Sandy. More importantly, for all of the week following Sandy. Couldn't say that for anything else in the building (including the Time Warner cable, which literally burned out when that power station went).

Is your cousin dealing directly with Verizon or with a 3rd party agent? I'll bet the New York State Public Service Commission doesn't allow them forcing that.

BJ says:

Is your cousin dealing directly with Verizon or with a 3rd party agent? I'll bet the New York State Public Service Commission doesn't allow them forcing that.

My sister, who is officially on my cousin's phone contract as a party allowed to make service changes. is of course dealing directly with Verizon. Why would she be dealing with a 3rd party agent?

The only 3rd party that has any say about lines in the building is the condo organization. And I'd bet would love her to keep my cousin's existing landline. To take it out probably makes the unit less valuable, or something.

My cousin's cell phone, as well as landline, are serviced by Verizon. (But of course Verizon considers cell service & landline service to be totally different entities, so that they can screw their unionized workers on the landline side (which they've done here in Boston).)

At any rate, I'll tell her to take it up with the New York State Public Service Commission, but I wouldn't look for any quick results going that route. And you don't want animosity you could get from having the State step in with your phone or cable or internet provider; they're dunderheads enough in a supposedly cordial relationship.

I agree with both rulings, on principle, but that's all I have. I'm not a constitutional scholar.

BackInTex wrote:I agree with both rulings, on principle, but that's all I have. I'm not a constitutional scholar.

This is a straight statutory interpretation case. If Congress wants to make what Aereo is doing clearly legal, or clearly illegal, it can. The Supreme Court needed to interpret the copyright statutes. --Bob

Bob78164 wrote:

BackInTex wrote:I agree with both rulings, on principle, but that's all I have. I'm not a constitutional scholar.

This is a straight statutory interpretation case. If Congress wants to make what Aereo is doing clearly legal, or clearly illegal, it can. The Supreme Court needed to interpret the copyright statutes. --Bob

The problem with copyright law is that it can never keep up with advances in technology.

silverscreenselect wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:

BackInTex wrote:I agree with both rulings, on principle, but that's all I have. I'm not a constitutional scholar.

This is a straight statutory interpretation case. If Congress wants to make what Aereo is doing clearly legal, or clearly illegal, it can. The Supreme Court needed to interpret the copyright statutes. --Bob

The problem with copyright law is that it can never keep up with advances in technology.

Sure it can. That's what we elect Congresscritters for. --Bob

It didn't take them long. At 9:30 yesterday morning, I got an e-mail from the CEO, and after the usual and after saying that they intended to keep fighting for consumers, he added they would " pause our operations temporarily as we consult with the court and map out our next steps." As of 11:30 that morning, the they ceased operations (they will refund the last month's payment for all customers).

I'm not holding my breath for them to come back on the air any time soon.

Update not on Aero but on my sister's Time-Warner cable woes; a local tech co confirmed to her that TW had powered down its output, effectively making cable-splits non-functional except via special TW splitters. They'll rent you the splitters for a nominal fee, but will also charge you a not-nominal fee for each new room you want to attach. They also will only install this stuff themself, & my sister doesn't want them anywhere near her DVD recorder, which is not their precious & expensive rental DVR. This apt doesn't have all that many rooms, but the cousin whose cable it is can't physically get into the room where the cable is any more (& my sister is living in there, anyway). TW stinks.

ghostjmf wrote:Update not on Aero but on my sister's Time-Warner cable woes; a local tech co confirmed to her that TW had powered down its output, effectively making cable-splits non-functional except via special TW splitters. They'll rent you the splitters for a nominal fee, but will also charge you a not-nominal fee for each new room you want to attach. They also will only install this stuff themself, & my sister doesn't want them anywhere near her DVD recorder, which is not their precious & expensive rental DVR. This apt doesn't have all that many rooms, but the cousin whose cable it is can't physically get into the room where the cable is any more (& my sister is living in there, anyway). TW stinks.

That's total B.S. Splitters are splitters. You can even get an amplified splitter.

ghostjmf wrote:Update not on Aero but on my sister's Time-Warner cable woes; a local tech co confirmed to her that TW had powered down its output, effectively making cable-splits non-functional except via special TW splitters. They'll rent you the splitters for a nominal fee, but will also charge you a not-nominal fee for each new room you want to attach. They also will only install this stuff themself, & my sister doesn't want them anywhere near her DVD recorder, which is not their precious & expensive rental DVR. This apt doesn't have all that many rooms, but the cousin whose cable it is can't physically get into the room where the cable is any more (& my sister is living in there, anyway). TW stinks.

Rupert Murdoch has submitted an offer to buy Time-Warner Cable. That should straighten things out.

TheConfessor wrote:

ghostjmf wrote:Update not on Aero but on my sister's Time-Warner cable woes; a local tech co confirmed to her that TW had powered down its output, effectively making cable-splits non-functional except via special TW splitters. They'll rent you the splitters for a nominal fee, but will also charge you a not-nominal fee for each new room you want to attach. They also will only install this stuff themself, & my sister doesn't want them anywhere near her DVD recorder, which is not their precious & expensive rental DVR. This apt doesn't have all that many rooms, but the cousin whose cable it is can't physically get into the room where the cable is any more (& my sister is living in there, anyway). TW stinks.

Rupert Murdoch has submitted an offer to buy Time-Warner Cable. That should straighten things out.

Actually he wants to buy Time Warner. The cable operation has already been spun off into an independent company and is being bought up by Comcast.

BJ says:

That's total B.S. Splitters are splitters. You can even get an amplified splitter.

If you are in NYC we can demonstrate to you the splitter, which hasn't changed one bit, & the Time-Warner signal, which has.

I think the tech co she was at would have sold her an amplified splitter if they thought it was the solution. It may be anyway. However, TW is also capable of putting info in their signal that makes non-TW-equipment not work. They seem to have been doing that with the premium shows for years; you can watch them, but a non-TW DVR can't record them. Network stuff it records just fine. Very mysterious. Especially since the same DVR recorded the same premium shows through Buckeye Cablevision in Ohio just fine, so it's not something that the premium shows do on their own.


And as you undoubtably know, ya gotta watch out what you're amplifying in TV-land. When I orginally connected my UHF antenna on my own system, after the change to digital signals, I left the signal amplifiier on that I had had on the VHF antenna. Stations were coming in at barely 80%, but I figured that that was just the breaks, digital signals are weak. Well, they are weaker than the analog signals used to be, but then I read something about how the amplifiers used for analog signals created some kind of echo-y interference pattern that actually screwed up digital signals. So I took the amplifier off & voila, much more powerful signals were on my TV. I am not giving you percentages of strength off the top of my head, but from what my converter boxes tell me about signal strength.

ghostjmf wrote:BJ says:

That's total B.S. Splitters are splitters. You can even get an amplified splitter.

If you are in NYC we can demonstrate to you the splitter, which hasn't changed one bit, & the Time-Warner signal, which has.

I think the tech co she was at would have sold her an amplified splitter if they thought it was the solution. It may be anyway. However, TW is also capable of putting info in their signal that makes non-TW-equipment not work. They seem to have been doing that with the premium shows for years; you can watch them, but a non-TW DVR can't record them. Network stuff it records just fine. Very mysterious. Especially since the same DVR recorded the same premium shows through Buckeye Cablevision in Ohio just fine, so it's not something that the premium shows do on their own.


And as you undoubtedly know, ya gotta watch out what you're amplifying in TV-land. When I originally connected my UHF antenna on my own system, after the change to digital signals, I left the signal amplifier on that I had had on the VHF antenna. Stations were coming in at barely 80%, but I figured that that was just the breaks, digital signals are weak. Well, they are weaker than the analog signals used to be, but then I read something about how the amplifiers used for analog signals created some kind of echo-y interference pattern that actually screwed up digital signals. So I took the amplifier off & voila, much more powerful signals were on my TV. I am not giving you percentages of strength off the top of my head, but from what my converter boxes tell me about signal strength.

Of course TW scrambles their signals. That's why you have to rent a cable card from them and, in my case, a separate box that demultiplexes some of their channels.

You're probably correct in your last paragraph.

My sister, on my cousin's behalf, rents from TW everything she is supposed to in order to be able to view the premium channels for which my cousin is paying, as well as broadcast channels TW delivers. She can these days view the premium channels only on the set attached to the original cable connection. She can no longer record them on her DVR; she used to be able to, before the power surge that came when that power station blew up due to flooding during Sandy.


None of TW's replacement equipment works the way their previous equipment did.

ghostjmf wrote:My sister, on my cousin's behalf, rents from TW everything she is supposed to in order to be able to view the premium channels for which my cousin is paying, as well as broadcast channels TW delivers. She can these days view the premium channels only on the set attached to the original cable connection. She can no longer record them on her DVR; she used to be able to, before the power surge that came when that power station blew up due to flooding during Sandy.


None of TW's replacement equipment works the way their previous equipment did.

Unless there's a cable card in the DVR it will not be able to record most channels.

Of course there isn't a cable card in the DVD recorder. Its a Panasonic DVD recorder, not a TW DVR. Sorry I mis-named it in my above post. But nevertheless it recorded all channels off of Buckeye Cablevision in Ohio. And it recorded all channels off of Time-Warner in Manhattan before the TW equipment got fried during Sandy.


Back in the days, a few short years ago, when people had VCRs, then DVD recorders, the cable companies let you record stuff on them. After a Supreme Court ruling that you could make one copy for yourself, of course. Stuff you could save on media you owned. Now the cable companies want you to rent DVRs from them, & you can only get the stuff you record onto media you own by some twisty methods & software programs they don't condone. More power to you who have the computer power & technical know-how for this, but the rest of the world is left moaning about their filled-up DVRs.


I'll be fond of DVRS, & so will my sister, when they come equipped with little slots for USB drives to drain your recorded programs onto for safekeeping.


There's a letter in that supposedly-comedic "Judge Hoffman" or whatever column on the "one page magazine" inside a recent NY Times Magazine where the writer asks if its moral to delete DVR shows their mate has recorded in order to free up space for their own favorite shows. Recording shows you then don't watch & delete, & then moaning about you have no space left, has become a regular thing.

ghostjmf wrote:Of course there isn't a cable card in the DVD recorder. Its a Panasonic DVD recorder, not a TW DVR. Sorry I mis-named it in my above post. But nevertheless it recorded all channels off of Buckeye Cablevision in Ohio. And it recorded all channels off of Time-Warner in Manhattan before the TW equipment got fried during Sandy.


Back in the days, a few short years ago, when people had VCRs, then DVD recorders, the cable companies let you record stuff on them. After a Supreme Court ruling that you could make one copy for yourself, of course. Stuff you could save on media you owned. Now the cable companies want you to rent DVRs from them, & you can only get the stuff you record onto media you own by some twisty methods & software programs they don't condone. More power to you who have the computer power & technical know-how for this, but the rest of the world is left moaning about their filled-up DVRs.


I'll be fond of DVRS, & so will my sister, when they come equipped with little slots for USB drives to drain your recorded programs onto for safekeeping.


There's a letter in that supposedly-comedic "Judge Hoffman" or whatever column on the "one page magazine" inside a recent NY Times Magazine where the writer asks if its moral to delete DVR shows their mate has recorded in order to free up space for their own favorite shows. Recording shows you then don't watch & delete, & then moaning about you have no space left, has become a regular thing.

I'm very surprised that TW in NYC did not protect their premium channels until after Sandy.

While they want you to rent their DVRs, they have no problem renting you a cable card for your own DVR.

Both of my TiVos allow an external disk drive to be attached. I have a 500 Gb one on my older unit. I could add a 2 Tb one for just $80.

BJ says

I'm very surprised that TW in NYC did not protect their premium channels until after Sandy.

While they want you to rent their DVRs, they have no problem renting you a cable card for your own DVR.

Both of my TiVos allow an external disk drive to be attached. I have a 500 Gb one on my older unit. I could add a 2 Tb one for just $80.

The Supreme Court has ruled that you are just as allowed to record copies off of premium channels as off of broadcast channels. Why should premium channels be "protected" from being recorded except with specialized TW equipment?


According to your advice my sister should be renting or buying a DVR that allows an external disk drive to be attached. And if what she gets isn't TW's own, then she needs to pay for an additional cable card for it. And she'll have to hope that once the programs go into the DVR, they'll be able to be recorded out by her DVD recorder. Unless that's not what you mean by "external disk drive". It does have its own internal disk drive, from which you cut DVDs if you want to. Do you have to do anything to the signal going from your TiVos into your external disk drives to get a watchable program out?

ghostjmf wrote:BJ says

I'm very surprised that TW in NYC did not protect their premium channels until after Sandy.

While they want you to rent their DVRs, they have no problem renting you a cable card for your own DVR.

Both of my TiVos allow an external disk drive to be attached. I have a 500 Gb one on my older unit. I could add a 2 Tb one for just $80.

The Supreme Court has ruled that you are just as allowed to record copies off of premium channels as off of broadcast channels. Why should premium channels be "protected" from being recorded except with specialized TW equipment?


According to your advice my sister should be renting or buying a DVR that allows an external disk drive to be attached. And if what she gets isn't TW's own, then she needs to pay for an additional cable card for it. And she'll have to hope that once the programs go into the DVR, they'll be able to be recorded out by her DVD recorder. Unless that's not what you mean by "external disk drive". It does have its own internal disk drive, from which you cut DVDs if you want to. Do you have to do anything to the signal going from your TiVos into your external disk drives to get a watchable program out?

Cable companies protect their signals for premium channels to prevent people who aren't paying for them from viewing them. And again, you don't need to use only TW equipment to record them.

No, I don't have to do anything but to plug my external disk drive into the TiVo and format it using the TiVo's menu-driven software.