An innovative product launching later this month in NYC:
Christina Warren has high hopes for Aereo:
Just as Netflix has forced cable networks and service providers to adopt a more expansive TV Everywhere approach to content, Aereo could help force the same sort of disruption in the broadcast space.
Unsurprisingly, the broadcasters are suing. Timothy B. Lee sizes up the lawsuits and gets the opinion of Jimes Grimmelmann, a copyright scholar at New York Law School:
Grimmelmann told us that the case is likely to hinge on a 2008 ruling that is emerging as a legal foundation for a number of innovative new business models. In that case, a federal appeals court ruled that Cablevision did not infringe copyright when it created a "remote DVR" system in which the physical DVR hardware was located in a Cablevision server room rather than the customer's living room.
Cablevision argued that it wasn't vulnerable to copyright infringement claims because the user, not Cablevision, was ultimately in control of which programs were recorded and played back using the system. The court agreed, and its reasoning depended on the fact that Cablevision stored a separate physical copy of a program for each user who requested it, rather than storing a single copy and streaming that copy to every user.
(Full disclosure: IAC, which employs the Dish, has invested in Aereo)
The Dish 