8
votes
Locast suspending operations
@Locast:
As a non-profit, Locast was designed from the very beginning to operate in accordance with the strict letter of the law, but in response to the court's recent rulings, with which we respectfully disagree, we are hereby suspending operations, effective immediately.
Locast was rebroadcasting over the air television via the internet, but geolocked to the area of service. That's something that you're supposed to be able to do as a non-profit broadcaster, but the magic words "over the internet" means that it got a whole lot of attention, and it got smote.
Yeah, sounds similar to Aereo, though they weren't not-for-profit. They built a rig with hundreds of tiny TV antennas, and you could rent one and stream whatever was recorded from it. It shouldn't have run afoul of the law since each individual had their own personal antenna just like they would in their own home, but money is more powerful than the law, so they had to shut down.
Does anyone have detail about the logic of the ruling? IIRC, Locast was renting physical TV antennas 1:1 to customers, which seemed to me like a pretty watertight (if arbitrarily cumbersome) legal strategy. I'd love to know where the argument broke down.
That was Aereo, which was shut down for reasons... Locast operated as a non-profit, but made enough profit to expand into other areas, and took donations to stop a donation bumper from popping up on stream every 15 minutes. Those are supposed to be fair play, but it rubbed the right people the wrong way.
Thanks for the correction, I haven't been following this this space very closely. That makes more sense.
Also didn't realize that Aereo situation happened so long ago already, time flies...
This is a bummer. I started subscribing to Locast in July to watch the local news since I don't get great antenna reception in my apartment. I'm never going to buy cable so I don't know what the end game plan is for those who are suing Locast except they want their piece of the $5 a month pie.
Maybe they are also worried that its going to ruin the perspective on cable's value proposition. Why spend $50+ for TV with local channels when a $5 service plus streaming will do fine? It's times like these where you can point and say the US is a plutocracy first and democracy second.It's not so much the $5 recommended donation so much as rebroadcasting fees, so it's the terrestrial broadcasters being troublesome, not the cable companies (when they're not one and the same.)
Thank you for clarifying. I'm an idiot sometimes!