The Aereo Case Isn’t About Aereo, But About The Future Of Cloud Computing And Innovation

Grazed from TechDirt. Author: Mike Masnick.

We’ve been writing quite a bit about the Aereo case lately, which is scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court in late April. The case has an awful lot of powerful people and organizations lining up on both sides, filing briefs with the Supreme Court. Some have pointed out that Aereo’s technology really isn’t particularly innovative, and in fact, we’ve discussed how its setup is basically insane from a technology standpoint, but that the company is forced into building it that way to stay within the law (or so it and its supporters believe).

But some seem to be wondering why this one technology company, with something of a legal kludge is so important. It is incredibly important for reasons that have almost nothing to do with Aereo’s actual service. Rather, it’s about how the Supreme Court will interpret a key part of the Copyright Act, which could have an astoundingly bad chilling effect on pretty much all cloud computing…

This may not seem obvious at first glance, since few people associate Aereo with cloud computing. Matt Schruers does a nice job breaking down the key point, however, as to why this one decision will have far reaching implications well beyond Aereo. And it all comes down to how the Supreme Court defines what is a "public performance."…

Read more from the source @ https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140306/00350726450/aereo-case-isnt-about-aereo-about-future-cloud-computing-innovation.shtml

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