Faultline: Aereo Internet antenna verdict opens door to full blown OTT in US Jul 19, 2012 – Rethink Research
Two stories this month relating to the Internet TV producer FilmOn will change the face of OTT TV and movie services, particularly in the US. The main story did not concern FilmOn directly, but the mobile live TV streaming service Aereo, which as we reported in May 2012 has been facing lawsuits from broadcasters over its use of antennae grids to distribute signals Free To Air over the Internet.
Aereo had based its model on the fact that subscribers in the US, as elsewhere, can legally receive broadcaster services free to air terrestrially via their own roof top antenna. Aereo argued that it was logically the same to receive the signals over the Internet, providing each user had a dedicated miniature antenna (the size of a small coin) at Aereo’s head end. In effect the argument was that the Internet was just a long wire between the TV and a personal antenna. Aereo received Free To Air (FTA) signals from the principal networks via this antennae grid, just as subscribers could by digital terrestrial, and then streams them out over the Internet to Aereo capable devices, which for now means just iOS, although with support for Roku boxes and Kindle Fire promised soon. As it happens the interface is an HTML5 web page, so in principle it can support a wide range of devices anyway.
New York based Aereo has now prevailed over the broadcasters, following a ruling on July 11 by Federal Judge Alison Nathan that it can continue with its service taking live TV programming and sending it to mobile devices. But Aereo may not be the chief beneficiary of this ruling. Internet TV streaming company FilmOn, launched by media entrepreneur Alki David in 2006, is a larger player with access to over 120 streaming TV channels as well as premium movie and pay-per-view channels, plus over 2,000 VoD titles. FilmOn uses very similar antenna distribution technology to Aereo, and in May 2012 launched a Facebook app, which provides live TV as well as web-cam social streaming within Facebook.
FilmOn is better placed to capitalize quickly on the Aereo ruling, and immediately reinstated its live major Network streams in the state of New York. It is also settling its own dispute with the networks, including ABC, NBC, FOX, and CBS, which has geo-restricted its service to the so called New York States Designated Market Area. However FilmOn does have 160 HD channels, mostly available worldwide on FilmOn.com, and so is armed with significant content.
Another key difference from Aereo is that FilmOn has set out its stall as the ally of content producers, paying retransmission fees on behalf of all subscribers. This relates to the other story, where this time a major broadcast network was in the dock, CBS, alongside its subsidiary, technology news website CNET.com, accused of mass piracy by Alki David on behalf of artists and copyright owners whose work had been illegally distributed by peer to peer software vendors such as LimeWire, BitTorrent, and Frostwire. The coalition, called Artists for Justice, had launched the suit, contending that CBS Interactive and CNET acted as the main distributor of LimeWire software and promoted this and other P2P systems to profit from wide-scale copyright infringement.
The collation won this case, which has the effect of strengthening David’s hand in his campaign to have legitimate transmission rights over the Internet, ensuring that artists get paid. Naturally this has been pitched tongue in cheek as a David versus Goliath battle, but in this case Goliath could soon end up being the underdog.
