Aereo Gets OK From Bankruptcy Court To Auction Technology Assets 42
An anonymous reader writes Judge Sean Lane of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan gave permission to Aereo to sell its remaining assets to the highest bidder. The decision came after Aereo reached an agreement with the major broadcast networks that are suing the service. From the article: "Now a bankruptcy court in New York has granted Aereo permission to sell off its assets, with one big caveat: those angry broadcasters who shut them down in the first place? They get to approve any sales that go down. The auction will take place on February 24, at which point the broadcasters have two weeks to decide if they're okay with the highest bidder."
wow (Score:2, Insightful)
so this means the broadcasters can approve a lowballed sale from their own subsidiary and then offer the same service as the now defunct aereo. status quo will remain status quo
Re: (Score:2)
ANY technology is ultimately "loophole" technology. Aereo is not unique in this. People will sell anything to anyone as long as it makes them a buck and doesn't get them arrested. Even an arrest might not slow some people down.
That's capitalism.
Agile rats try to outmanuver lumbering dinosaurs.
Re: (Score:1)
ANY technology is ultimately "loophole" technology.
Precisely. The development of fire and smelting copper were just an end-run around Sumerian IP laws...
Re: (Score:2)
When the law is for sale to the highest bidder, technology that lets everyone else get around it is quite valuable indeed.
Re: (Score:3)
Probably not. Think of it more of a veto. In order for one network to win the bid on a sweetheart low ball bid – which implies free money - all of the other networks would have to agree. What is the chance of that happening? Zero. The networks are competitors of each other. They would rather see the assets destroyed and burned than one of their competitors getting a free lunch.
Re: (Score:2)
True, but the bankruptcy court is also working for the interest of creditors.
Just because the networks have veto power doesn't mean the courts can't overrule that. If a good bid comes in that gets vetoed and no one else puts in as good a bid, the courts may just allow the sale because their job is to recover as much money as possible.
So yeah, the networks may veto an all out buy to set up Aereo 2, but if
They can't be abusive (Score:3)
Do we know who the creditors are?
I was under the impression that it was the networks. If that is the case, the primary goal won't be to extract as much cash from the corpse or (as the conspiracies in this thread suggest - which is where my post was pointed to) cheaply take over the company. Rather, it would be to drive a stake through Aereo's heart. Yes, the court is supposed to oversee the process for abuses – but somebody has to contest the issue. I just don't see anybody pushing the issue to hard.
Re: (Score:2)
Typically, "real" creditors take precedence over tort claimants in the US.
In the case of Aereo, a 2019 filed recently [dropboxusercontent.com] lists Quality Investment Properties, L3 (yes, that L3), and C7, basically for providing physical space, power, and telecom services.
Re: (Score:1)
I'm curious as to why the broadcasters were given any voice over the sale.
I would think that the court would allow any sale to go through that would maximize the funds available to pay off Aereo's creditors, whether or not the broadcasters are considered to be among those creditors.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm curious as to why the broadcasters were given any voice over the sale. I would think that the court would allow any sale to go through that would maximize the funds available to pay off Aereo's creditors,
While conspiracy theories are common for /., it is more likely that the low-ball bids will come from groups who want to set up competition without spending a lot of money, or to just get a lot of cheap hardware for other uses. The veto is to allow the people who are owed the money to keep the sale price reasonable, not to guarantee that they themselves can buy it for $1. I.e., it is intended to maximize the funds, not minimize them.
Re: (Score:1)
The veto is to allow the people who are owed the money to keep the sale price reasonable, not to guarantee that they themselves can buy it for $1.
Then I would think that veto power would be extended to all the creditors. If it is, maybe that little tidbit was omitted because it would remove some of the zing from the article.
Re: (Score:2)
For 2 reasons.
First, the networks are creditors. They are owed damages. Remember, this is a civil, not criminal matter. Nobody goes to jail but money is owed.
Second, the court and networks do not want a company buying the assets then relaunching a clone version.
Re: (Score:1)
No, they had one antenna per customer. They did this specifically to try to evade the existing law requiring royalty payments for CATV [wikipedia.org] distributors, which originally started by putting an antenna on a mountaintop and running a cable down into the valley to sell the signal to the locals who couldn't otherwise get it through the mountain. After all, if each customer had their own personal antenna on the end of a wire then it's totally different than everyone sharing one antenna o
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
The idea was solid, but the laws are antiquated and the cable companies are greedy. Laws that would prevent me from re-broadcasting a cable signal to non-cable subscribers, or prevent me from streaming a signal over the internet to another region are what ultimately did this company in.
From any common sense I can possibly understand, there was no moral or legal reason to shut Aereo down. If anything, the Television companies would benefit by retaining viewers. Cable is nothing more than a utility that br
Re:online DVD rental service (Score:5, Interesting)
The law isn't the problem. Judges are corrupt and willing to consider inappropriate things like "will this cause the profits of a corporation to suffer" rather than just applying the law. It was a well crafted bit of technical trickery meant to follow the letter of the law.
The court chose to ignore that. Lower courts then chose to ignore the mental gymnastics the higher court came up with.
They changed the rules and refused to allow Aereo to change to accommodate them.
Re: (Score:1)
Zediva. It was already tried and shut down by the courts a couple years ago.
https://gigaom.com/2012/03/19/zediva-liquidation-assets/
----
Zediva launched [~Early 2011] with a unique proposition: The company offered to stream current-release DVD titles for $1.99 per movie – much less than customers would have to pay to VOD services like Amazon or iTunes. Zediva was able to achieve these low rates through a complex workaround: Instead of licensing the movies from Hollywood studios, it simply bought them o
Re: (Score:2)
mod parent up.
Rulings like those in Aareo and Zediva's cases almost make it seem like normal DVD rentals and TiVO's will be the next on the chopping block. Of course, they tried, but somehow (luckily) those won.
Why the hell Zediva got shut down is beyond me.
Aereo was actually more likely to be shut down than Zediva (it could be argued that Aereo put some load on the existing system to sell a rebroadcast to users that were not possible customers of said broadcasts which, while technically should have skirted
Why Zediva got shut down? (Score:1)
Zediva was shutdown because like Aero they tried to work around the laws to skip paying for a license from the content provider.
They were purchasing regular DVDs and renting them in violation of the DVD license. Rental DVDs require a totally different license.
Not that I agree with the licensing scheme, but just stating the reason.
Re: (Score:3)
Zediva was shutdown because like Aero they tried to work around the laws to skip paying for a license from the content provider.
They were purchasing regular DVDs and renting them in violation of the DVD license. Rental DVDs require a totally different license.
[bolded by me] That part is not true AFAICT. See The Consumer Video Sales/Rental Amendment of 1983.
In that case, the doctrine of first sale was upheld, and you can do whatever you want with something that you have legitimately acquired a copy of (ex. VHS or DVD).
Just one of many examples:
http://thinkprogress.org/ygles... [thinkprogress.org]
Re: (Score:2)
As I understand the law from previous readings, it is legal to rent or buy an antenna and install it on land you rent or own, but it is not legal to rent or buy access to an antenna on land you neither rent nor own.
Think of the scenario of living at the bottom of a hill that blocks access to all the TV signals from the nearby town. If the guy who owns the top of the hill installs an antenna and runs a cable down to your property line, he can't sell you access to that cable. Likewise, you can't buy an ante
Re: (Score:2)
You are a troll. DIAF and have a nice day.
Re: (Score:3)
Given that the bankruptcy is mostly due to the lawsuit demanding that Aereo pay them a bajillion dollars, they'd basically be paying that money to themselves. If they turn down a $1 billion dollar offer for the gear, then they don't get a billion dollars, because there's no other way they're going to get this money legit.
Personally I think the first post is the most insightful for once: they'll create a front company, put in an offer to buy the gear for $1 or whatever, reject everything else, kill off Aere
Re: Sounds good (Score:1)
But cbs owns content, they don't need aero (which was trying to distribute ota content legally, but without paying, note I think this should be legal without trickery, the content is in therory paid for with ads, more viewers is better).
I suspect a Canadian company may buy it, if memory serves correctly, rebroadcasting unaltered content is legal in Canada.
Place Your bets Everyone!! (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
This.
The broadcasters, FCC, and courts drove out the little guy Aereo. Now we start to hear talks about changing the laws/policies to specifically allow Aereo's type of service. Why didn't they consider this while Aereo was in business?
fly on the wall at the auction... (Score:3)
"Alright, let's get this party started. Lot Number One... a pallet cube... we have a jumble of some sort of boxes of geegaw stuff, half have power cords. there are no manuals or labelling on the devices. let's start bidding at a dollar... one dollar dollar dollar, lot 1... still one dollar... do I hear 50 cents?"
Tiny Antennas!?! (Score:2)
According to their explanation, Aereo used "tiny antennas" to connect each customer with their content. Wonder if those are going to be sold off...
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, there might be huge market for these tiny antennas if they work at a satisfactory distance from the OTA transmitting antennas.
Re: (Score:2)
I need some funny points for the post I made above... Anything smaller than rabbit ears or that thing you put on the roof is too small for TV to work.