Good decision or bad decision? http://nbcnews.to/UK0H2f
Distribution : U.S. Supreme Court Pulls the Plug on Aereo's Streaming TV Service by Andrew Heard
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Which will only push ex paying customers to look for some other legal or illegal streaming TV service.
You're probably right, and that's sad.
Good decision or bad decision? Depends on which side you're on. Good for the networks who will be able to continue charging cable companies rebroadcasting fees, bad for consumers, who will have to keep paying high fees to watch (unless you use an antenna). And in a sense, I suppose, it's also good for content creators (like screenwriters!) as publishing content for free (like Aereo was doing) lessens profit and lowers pay for those who create the content. That being said, if the cable and satellite companies didn't gouge you with their prices and provide terrible service (and weren't legal semi-monopolies), you'd have fewer people looking for better (and cheaper) alternatives. As a consumer, I wish Aereo won. As a screenwriter, I think that Aereo could have hurt the networks financials significantly (in the long term) and that could drag down wages in the industry as profits fall. So like most things, it's a mixed bag.
In my opinion, Aereo is the Napster to the eventual "iTunes" of Aereo.
Doesn't matter in the long run, the masses are discovering alternatives and as soon as they plug one hole in the "media bucket" two more spring up. Andrew has a good point comparing the temporal evolution of music on the internet/digital formats. There's no way to stop the flow of smaller independent productions and the more people enjoy them the more they ask themselves "why do I watch 12 ad spots on TV and only 2-3 online?" Remember Pay TV? Commercial free? How about now we're paying and there are lots of ads. (you're experience may vary, ex: HBO has fewer and sometimes no ads for what I think is the best content on Cable) But folks also know that news reports with 45 sec's of content are NOT worth a 30 sec commercial either. The industry is looking at this phenomena with 50 year old filters. The RO (Read Only) media industry has died and the RW (Read Write) generation is waiting for the rest of us to catch up. Rock bands putting up their albums for "pay what you will/can" is just the start.