This comment is a sterling example of the crazy attitude of many on Hacker News.
Those "beams of light" had to be created, administered and regulated in order to even exist.
It is absurd that you think created content is simply a "beam of light" that anyone can harness how they see fit. I guess the objects in your house are just clusters of publicly accessible carbon; after all your locks are just lumps of publicly accessible alloys.
Except that the particular beams of light being discussed are intentionally meant by the broadcasters as resources for the public as part of fulfilling their deal to license the spectrum that beams of light useful for TV happen in, since the spectrum is fundamentally a public resource (hence open to anyone), and the exchange of public spectrum comes only in return for public usable content.
It's not like the claim was about just any beam of light.
Right. I think that there's a big difference (legally and morally) between the beams of light passing between my cell phone an the cell tower, versus something that's being broadcast specifically so that everyone with an antenna can hear it.
That is true to a point. But the spectrum is only a public resource under specific conditions and Aereo has not met those conditions according to the law and legal institutions we have empowered to make those decisions.
I have read some of your previous posts and they are exceptionally well written.
However, I await the idiotic HN consensus about to be posted below this comment stating -
a. Judges are <insert slur> old men
b. Old people don't understand technology
c. Silicon Valley could solve the entire world if we just let it
Those "beams of light" had to be created, administered and regulated in order to even exist.
It is absurd that you think created content is simply a "beam of light" that anyone can harness how they see fit. I guess the objects in your house are just clusters of publicly accessible carbon; after all your locks are just lumps of publicly accessible alloys.