ziggy29
Moderator Emeritus
Then makes the bypass illegal. Problem solved.
I still don't see how this makes Aereo illegal. Less profitable for broadcasters, yes.
The distinction in law may (I don't know, IANAL) come down to the difference between sending signals via a physical cable and sending them wirelessly.
If I put up an antenna on my property and ran the cable to a neighbor's house so they could get free OTA television, I'm pretty sure that's within the law. Even if I were to run miles of cable, with the consent of the people on whose land the cable ran (signal loss aside), if they had a dedicated antenna that fed their home I'm pretty sure that would be legal as well. So does the law change when the transmission medium is wireless signals rather than a cable? I guess that's a key test. Maybe it's considered a rebroadcast or retransmission when done wirelessly, but not when it's a long dedicated wired connection?
I suppose it points to a change in business model. Once upon a time -- like more than 30 years ago, perhaps -- broadcasters would be thrilled with entities willing to send their programming (with all the commercials) into more households; more viewers meant more money. But perhaps now they are planning on making more money from retransmission agreements with cable and satellite providers than from advertisers, and they are hostile to such an idea.