A visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Internet, Communications and Technology Policy believes that Aereo’s most recent loss in court is well deserved and terminal.
Thomas Snyder said that Aereo, like many others before it, may present itself as an internet entrepreneur, but in fact it is just a modern-day content pirate.
The court ruled in ABC Inc. v. Aereo Inc. resulted in a nationwide injuction against Aereo – and according to Snyder, an attempt by Aereo to argue that it is a DVR-type service may be DOA on grounds it would trample on broadcaster’s performance rights.
Snyder said, “For over a decade, a few rogue entities posing as “Internet entrepreneurs” have impeded innovation by attempting to sacrifice technological efficiency in favor of mass piracy. Their efforts have consistently failed. Consequently, Aereo now finds itself in the same dustbin of history as its equally inefficient comrades Aimster, Grokster, Morpheus, KaZaA, LimeWire, Hotfile, isoHunt, and, more recently, Grooveshark. All of these would-be Internet pirate-kings had one thing in common: they all tried to profit from mass piracy using means that made no sense from legal or technological perspectives.”
He concluded, “The court deserves credit for its proposal to quickly resolve the remains of this case. The sooner that it is resolved, the sooner potentially productive persons and resources will be redirected away from Aereo-and-LimeWire-like piracy schemes, and towards real, efficiency-enhancing, non-piratical innovations.”
