As usual, Karl, your commentary is driven entirely by emotion, and demonstrates only that, and a profound lack of understanding.
Ok. We get it. You hate your cable company (and probably just about every other company, excepting a few sacred cows that you love). And it's oh so easy for you to contort your perception of the world to match that profound belief in corporate evil....
For those who are a bit more interested in actually understanding...Cablevision and Verizon aren't cutting back on promotions as part of some evil plot. They are cutting back on promotions because they are finally getting over the "I must beat the other at all costs" mentality that drove competition via promotions for many years.
It is a completely rational and reasonable thing for companies to understand which customers are profitable for them, and which are not. And deciding that you are, at a minimum, no longer going to bend over backward to attract and retain customers who are not profitable is a very rational and reasonable thing to do. It's the same thing any of us would do, if we were running our own business (and wanted to remain in business).
Consumers got a great deal for a number of years as two sides engaged in not necessarily terribly rational competition, offering prices prices below their cost of service. Good for those consumers. But to whine because you're no longer getting a deal so good that the provider loses money on you? Please, that's a bit much.
And your claim that Cablevision charges the highest rates in the nation further demonstrates your profound lack of understanding. As many people who live outside of Cablevision's footprint can and do attest, Cablevision's rates are quite far from highest in the country. In fact, they are probably among the lowest in the country (precisely because Cablevision has more competition than any other cable operator).
What is highest at Cablevision is not its rates, but the amount that customers pay each month, on average. But those customer bills aren't higher because Cablevision rates are highers than elsewhere. They are higher because Cablevision customers take more services than anywhere else. For decades, Cablevision has led cable operators in customers taking digital video, customers taking internet service, and customers taking voice service.
Customers have higher bills at Cablevision, because more of them choose more services from Cablevision over competitors than anywhere else!
And if you want to complain about super-inflationary cable rates, complain to your Congressmen. Because the increase in cable rates is virtually entirely due bad policy that enables programmers to increase their rates virtually at will, while cable (and satellite and telco) operators can do virtually nothing to prevent it. (Keep that in mind next time you have a channel blacked out because a cable or satellite or telco operator is trying to fight a rate increase, and you blame them for it....)
The video bill is where the virtually all of the increases have come over the last few decades. Broadband has not increased much at all (despite a 1000x increase in service levels vs. two decades ago), and cable voice service dramatically reduced consumer costs compared to the incumbent phone companies.
What's more, the data shows that cable providers actually passed through only half of the video rate increases imposed by programmers -- precisely because stiff competition among cable, satellite and telco operators meant none of them had pricing power to pass through the full increases.
Perhaps one of these days you'll take a break from whining and ranting long enough to actually take time to research some facts (vs. just finding ammunition to back up your points) and honestly try to understand even a little bit about what you deign to criticize, before you start ranting.
Mr. Masnick, how much more could you get wrong in one posting? (Does anybody even attempt to do actual research, or to fact-check, anymore, before publishing?)
For the record, I believe that Aereo clearly qualifies as a cable system under the statutory definition at 17 USC 111(f)3. But pretty much everything you say in your article is wrong.
For starters, the Supreme Court made no ruling whatsoever respecting retransmission fees in ABC v. Aereo. Retransmission fees are not copyright royalties/license fees, and they were not at issue in the case. And what Aereo has attempted to pay are not retransmission fees, but copyright royalties/administrative fees pursuant to the statutory license of 17 USC 111(d). (Retransmission fees, on the other hand, are paid directly to broadcasters, after negotiation of retransmission consent.)
Furthermore, the Supreme Court most assuredly did not declare that Aereo "matches all the important criteria of a cable company" such that Aereo qualifies as a cable system for the purposes of section 111. (Some of the justices clearly indicated such during oral argument, and they should have commented on the matter in dicta...but they didn't.)
Finally, the Copyright Office isn't adhering to the Ivi decision. The Ivi decision adhered to the Copyright Office, which has always and consistently (long before Aereo, and Ivi, too, for that matter) imposed additional, extra-statutory criteria on its recognition of "cable systems" under section 111. And it is not the least bit surprising for the Copyright Office to continue to take the view it always has, and handle the matter as it did. That this seems to surprise you, and that you see no clear reason for such, is a product solely of your lack of understanding of the matters on which you are commenting.
The SDNY court hearing the Aereo case on remand ought to conclude that Aereo qualifies as a cable system under 111(f)3, at which time, the Copyright Office ought to accept that ruling (though given what happened at the Supreme Court, there is certainly no assurance they will). Regardless, it is no surprise at all that the Copyright Office decline to recognize Aereo as a cable system on their own, ahead of such a ruling.
Those who are interested in accurate information respecting this matter should see:
You mischaracterize Elena Kagan's brief as Solicitor General in the Cablevision case. While in some (but not all) respects, the brief appeared sympathetic to the Second Circuit holding, it did not "tell the Supreme Court not to overturn" the decision, as you suggest. In fact, it wasn't even a brief on the merits of the case.
Kagan's brief merely argued that the Cablevision case did not provide a good opportunity for the Court to settle the issue once and for all (because of constraints the parties had agreed to in the underlying litigation), and so the Court should wait for another case that presented a better opportunity.
Good lord. I'm glad that this is categorized under "Politics" rather "Law," though better still if it were categorized as "Demagoguery" or even just "Fantasy."
You get so little right, it is dwarfed by that which you get wrong.
For starters, plenty of people (including more courts than you suggest) have reached the conclusion that Aereo-style systems infringe. Personally, I believe pretty strongly that they are wrong -- but isn't it sufficient just to argue that they are wrong? Must you also start spinning conspiracy theories about how anybody who disagrees with your (completely uninformed) view are obviously corrupt?
I mean, I know not everybody can be the upstanding and incorruptible people that commentators at Techdirt are. (You guys don't benefit in any way by hyping controversy, right?)
Then there's the fact that the SG's argument is not a carbon copy of the broadcasters' position. If it's a carbon copy of anything, it's a carbon copy of Cablevision's position -- arguing that Aereo infringes, while Cablevision and other cloud storage systems do not. (This is certainly not the broadcasters' view.)
It's apparent that you haven't read the SG's brief -- or if you did, you certainly didn't understand it -- because your summary of what it does and doesn't say, what it does or doesn't ignore almost couldn't be less informed.
And apparently you never read Kagan's SG brief in the Cablevision case, either, because you mischaracterize that, also. That brief didn't take any firm position on the issues, and certainly didn't take a position that would clearly support Aereo. In fact, that brief expressed concern that the Cablevision precedent could be misinterpreted too broadly. If one were trying to read the tea leaves (after all, that brief was just about the question of whether the court should hear the case), one might conclude that their view was similar to the one released yesterday: that they thought Cablevision was probably ok, but feared it could be taken too far.
So perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise that the two briefs had at least one author in common.
That said, the SG's office very clearly got this one wrong. Not because I disagree with their basic arguments (which for the most part I do), but because they contradict their own argument in the process.
And I think that is properly attributed to simple incompetence, rather than malice.
Anybody who would like to actually understand the SG argument, and how it contradicts itself, can find more here:
As usual, Karl, your commentary is driven entirely by emotion, and demonstrates only that, and a profound lack of understanding.
Ok. We get it. You hate your cable company (and probably just about every other company, excepting a few sacred cows that you love). And it's oh so easy for you to contort your perception of the world to match that profound belief in corporate evil....
For those who are a bit more interested in actually understanding...Cablevision and Verizon aren't cutting back on promotions as part of some evil plot. They are cutting back on promotions because they are finally getting over the "I must beat the other at all costs" mentality that drove competition via promotions for many years.
It is a completely rational and reasonable thing for companies to understand which customers are profitable for them, and which are not. And deciding that you are, at a minimum, no longer going to bend over backward to attract and retain customers who are not profitable is a very rational and reasonable thing to do. It's the same thing any of us would do, if we were running our own business (and wanted to remain in business).
Consumers got a great deal for a number of years as two sides engaged in not necessarily terribly rational competition, offering prices prices below their cost of service. Good for those consumers. But to whine because you're no longer getting a deal so good that the provider loses money on you? Please, that's a bit much.
And your claim that Cablevision charges the highest rates in the nation further demonstrates your profound lack of understanding. As many people who live outside of Cablevision's footprint can and do attest, Cablevision's rates are quite far from highest in the country. In fact, they are probably among the lowest in the country (precisely because Cablevision has more competition than any other cable operator).
What is highest at Cablevision is not its rates, but the amount that customers pay each month, on average. But those customer bills aren't higher because Cablevision rates are highers than elsewhere. They are higher because Cablevision customers take more services than anywhere else. For decades, Cablevision has led cable operators in customers taking digital video, customers taking internet service, and customers taking voice service.
Customers have higher bills at Cablevision, because more of them choose more services from Cablevision over competitors than anywhere else!
And if you want to complain about super-inflationary cable rates, complain to your Congressmen. Because the increase in cable rates is virtually entirely due bad policy that enables programmers to increase their rates virtually at will, while cable (and satellite and telco) operators can do virtually nothing to prevent it. (Keep that in mind next time you have a channel blacked out because a cable or satellite or telco operator is trying to fight a rate increase, and you blame them for it....)
The video bill is where the virtually all of the increases have come over the last few decades. Broadband has not increased much at all (despite a 1000x increase in service levels vs. two decades ago), and cable voice service dramatically reduced consumer costs compared to the incumbent phone companies.
What's more, the data shows that cable providers actually passed through only half of the video rate increases imposed by programmers -- precisely because stiff competition among cable, satellite and telco operators meant none of them had pricing power to pass through the full increases.
Perhaps one of these days you'll take a break from whining and ranting long enough to actually take time to research some facts (vs. just finding ammunition to back up your points) and honestly try to understand even a little bit about what you deign to criticize, before you start ranting.
Fact-check anyone?
Mr. Masnick, how much more could you get wrong in one posting? (Does anybody even attempt to do actual research, or to fact-check, anymore, before publishing?)
For the record, I believe that Aereo clearly qualifies as a cable system under the statutory definition at 17 USC 111(f)3. But pretty much everything you say in your article is wrong.
For starters, the Supreme Court made no ruling whatsoever respecting retransmission fees in ABC v. Aereo. Retransmission fees are not copyright royalties/license fees, and they were not at issue in the case. And what Aereo has attempted to pay are not retransmission fees, but copyright royalties/administrative fees pursuant to the statutory license of 17 USC 111(d). (Retransmission fees, on the other hand, are paid directly to broadcasters, after negotiation of retransmission consent.)
Furthermore, the Supreme Court most assuredly did not declare that Aereo "matches all the important criteria of a cable company" such that Aereo qualifies as a cable system for the purposes of section 111. (Some of the justices clearly indicated such during oral argument, and they should have commented on the matter in dicta...but they didn't.)
Finally, the Copyright Office isn't adhering to the Ivi decision. The Ivi decision adhered to the Copyright Office, which has always and consistently (long before Aereo, and Ivi, too, for that matter) imposed additional, extra-statutory criteria on its recognition of "cable systems" under section 111. And it is not the least bit surprising for the Copyright Office to continue to take the view it always has, and handle the matter as it did. That this seems to surprise you, and that you see no clear reason for such, is a product solely of your lack of understanding of the matters on which you are commenting.
The SDNY court hearing the Aereo case on remand ought to conclude that Aereo qualifies as a cable system under 111(f)3, at which time, the Copyright Office ought to accept that ruling (though given what happened at the Supreme Court, there is certainly no assurance they will). Regardless, it is no surprise at all that the Copyright Office decline to recognize Aereo as a cable system on their own, ahead of such a ruling.
Those who are interested in accurate information respecting this matter should see:
Overcoming Ivi to Qualify as a Cable System
You mischaracterize Elena Kagan's brief as Solicitor General in the Cablevision case. While in some (but not all) respects, the brief appeared sympathetic to the Second Circuit holding, it did not "tell the Supreme Court not to overturn" the decision, as you suggest. In fact, it wasn't even a brief on the merits of the case.
Kagan's brief merely argued that the Cablevision case did not provide a good opportunity for the Court to settle the issue once and for all (because of constraints the parties had agreed to in the underlying litigation), and so the Court should wait for another case that presented a better opportunity.
Really?
Good lord. I'm glad that this is categorized under "Politics" rather "Law," though better still if it were categorized as "Demagoguery" or even just "Fantasy."
You get so little right, it is dwarfed by that which you get wrong.
For starters, plenty of people (including more courts than you suggest) have reached the conclusion that Aereo-style systems infringe. Personally, I believe pretty strongly that they are wrong -- but isn't it sufficient just to argue that they are wrong? Must you also start spinning conspiracy theories about how anybody who disagrees with your (completely uninformed) view are obviously corrupt?
I mean, I know not everybody can be the upstanding and incorruptible people that commentators at Techdirt are. (You guys don't benefit in any way by hyping controversy, right?)
Then there's the fact that the SG's argument is not a carbon copy of the broadcasters' position. If it's a carbon copy of anything, it's a carbon copy of Cablevision's position -- arguing that Aereo infringes, while Cablevision and other cloud storage systems do not. (This is certainly not the broadcasters' view.)
It's apparent that you haven't read the SG's brief -- or if you did, you certainly didn't understand it -- because your summary of what it does and doesn't say, what it does or doesn't ignore almost couldn't be less informed.
And apparently you never read Kagan's SG brief in the Cablevision case, either, because you mischaracterize that, also. That brief didn't take any firm position on the issues, and certainly didn't take a position that would clearly support Aereo. In fact, that brief expressed concern that the Cablevision precedent could be misinterpreted too broadly. If one were trying to read the tea leaves (after all, that brief was just about the question of whether the court should hear the case), one might conclude that their view was similar to the one released yesterday: that they thought Cablevision was probably ok, but feared it could be taken too far.
So perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise that the two briefs had at least one author in common.
That said, the SG's office very clearly got this one wrong. Not because I disagree with their basic arguments (which for the most part I do), but because they contradict their own argument in the process.
And I think that is properly attributed to simple incompetence, rather than malice.
Anybody who would like to actually understand the SG argument, and how it contradicts itself, can find more here:
http://cimc-greenfield.com/2014/03/03/us-government-sides-with-broadcasters-on-aereo-contradicting-itself-in-the-process/