Aereo analysis: Cloud computing at a crossroads

Grazed from ArsTechnica. Author: David Kravets.

The question of whether online broadcast television is to remain in the hands of a stodgy industry that once declared the VCR the enemy is being put directly before the Supreme Court. Broadcasters’ latest legal target is 2-year-old upstart Aereo—which retransmits over-the-air broadcast television using dime-sized antennas to paying consumers, who can watch TV online or record it for later viewing.

Broadcasters like ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, and others haven’t given Aereo permission to do that, and they say it violates US copyright law. The industry will ask the Supreme Court during a Tuesday hearing to kill the New York-based Aereo service. The high-stakes oral arguments come 30 years after Hollywood told the justices that the VCR—and its time-shifting elements—would doom television and its producers forever…

An industry on the line

An outcome perhaps more important than who controls the broadcast airways has generated a great amount of concern, and it’s not just the expected chorus from the copyleft. Companies like Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Yahoo, and others are worried that a victory for the broadcasters could upend the cloud…

Read more from the source @ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/aereo-analysis-cloud-computing-at-a-crossroads/

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