評論
打印
Television in America
美國電視產業
The bandit of broadcast
廣播電視業界的強盜
The Supreme Court's decision on Aereo may affect more than the TV business
最高法院將對Aereo案件進行裁決，而其影響范圍或許會超出電視產業本身
CHET KANOJIA, the founder of Aereo, wonders which actor will play him, when Hollywood makes a film about his startup disrupting the television industry. “Probably a white guy,” Mr Kanojia, who is Indian-American, says drolly. Whether his firm will feature on the big screen or rapidly be forgotten depends on the outcome of a lawsuit between Aereo and America's big free-to-air broadcast networks—such as ABC, CBS and Fox—which is being weighed by the Supreme Court. Oral arguments in the case were heard on April 22nd and a decision is due within months.
當好萊塢的電影公司想要拍一部關于Aereo創始人Chet Kanojia如何瓦解整個電視產業的電影之時，這位老板也在思考著到底讓哪一位演員來扮演自己。“或許會挑個白人，”印度裔美國人Kanojia先生戲謔地說道。最后他的電影到底是能成功登上大熒幕，抑或是迅速被大家所遺忘，要取決于一場官司的最終結果。最高法院正在對這場官司進行權衡，而對抗雙方則是Aereo與美國免費廣播電視巨頭，如美國廣播公司、哥倫比亞廣播公司和福克斯廣播公司。案件的口頭辯論在4月22日已經完成，而最終裁決將在數月之內宣布。
Mr Kanojia and Aereo are not yet household names, but are the subject of much debate among geeks, copyright lawyers and TV executives. Aereo picks up the signals of free-to-air channels and streams them to its subscribers over the internet, so they can watch them with the same good picture quality as they get via cable, but for a fraction of the average monthly cable bill. Each subscriber is assigned one of a huge number of thumbnail-sized aerials in Aereo's warehouses. Aereo claims this is in principle no different—and thus no less legal—than the subscriber putting an antenna on his roof. But broadcast bosses see it differently. They say Aereo is violating copyright law by not paying them for a “public performance” of their content.
Kanojia與Aereo目前還不是一對家喻戶曉的名字，但對于極客、版權律師以及電視主管們來說，這確實是極為火熱的話題。Aereo公司接收免費廣播電視的頻道信號，并把這些頻道轉化成流媒體以供他們的付費訂閱用戶在線觀看。因此，這些用戶在付出相當于普通有線電視月租費用的很小一部分，就可以享受跟有線電視一樣的高畫質電視服務。相當于在Aereo公司的倉庫里，有數以百萬計的“微縮遠程天線”，而每個訂閱用戶都能分到其中一條。Aereo公司宣稱，這與免費廣播電視的服務沒什么不同，就像是讓他們的客戶在自己家的房頂安裝天線接收信號一樣，是非常合法的行為。但廣播電視公司的老板們卻不這么認為。他們堅持Aereo公司違反了版權法，因為后者沒有給他們提供的節目內容付費，就進行了“公開傳播”。
So far Aereo is available in only 11 cities. But broadcasters worry that it threatens a fast-growing revenue stream: the fees they get from cable- and satellite-TV operators that retransmit their channels. Such fees came to about $3.3 billion in 2013, according to SNL Kagan, a data firm. The pay-TV companies would not want to keep paying these if Aereo did not have to. So broadcasters have threatened that if Aereo wins, they will take their content off the public airwaves and offer it through pay-TV only.
目前，Aereo的服務范圍僅限于11個城市。但是，廣播電視公司擔心這樣的服務會威脅到自身的快速增長利潤源：對有線或者衛星電視運營商處所收取的轉播費用。數據公司SNL Kagan所提供的資料顯示，2013年該轉播費用總計為33億美元。如果Aereo公司無需為轉播權買單，那么其他付費電視公司也將停止為自己的轉播權付費。因此廣播電視公司對Aereo公司做出了相應的警告：如果Aereo公司勝訴，那么他們將停止在公共無線頻道上提供電視轉播服務，轉交由付費電視公司獨家供應給觀眾。
Aereo has raised around $100m from various investors, including Barry Diller, a veteran media executive. Mr Diller's volte-face is worthy of a prime-time drama: having launched Fox, one of America's four big broadcast networks, in the 1980s, he is now a booster for broadcast's bandit. But if Aereo loses it will probably shut down. The government has supported the big broadcasters, undermining Aereo's chances. As for the courts, so far their judgments on Aereo's legality have been mixed: last year two federal courts sided with Aereo, but in February a federal court in Utah ordered it to close its operations in that state.
Aereo已經得到了各路投資者約1億美元的資金，這其中還包括傳媒大亨巴里·迪勒。迪勒先生截然不同的投資轉變就像是一出黃金時段的電視劇：80年代，他成立了福克斯廣播公司，而現在他卻成了電視業大盜的贊助者。然而Aereo公司一旦敗訴，很可能對其意味著關門大吉。目前政府已經與各大廣播電視巨頭在統一戰線，使Aereo公司的勝訴幾率大減。在法庭方面，他們對Aereo合法性的判決并沒有達成共識：去年兩個聯邦法庭支持Aereo公司，但今年2月猶他州的一個聯邦法庭則勒令其停止在本州內的所有業務。
Legislation has not kept up with new technology. Cable in America is regulated by a 1992 law, and copyright by a 1976 one. Both were written before the rise of the commercial internet, notes Rich Greenfield of BTIG, a research firm.
法律法規沒有跟上新科技的步伐。有線電視產業受1992年出臺的法律管制，而版權問題則受1976年的法律所管理。來自調查機構BTIG的Rich Greenfield表示，在網絡商務興起之前這兩部法律就已經制訂完成。
Many are watching the case to make sure the verdict does not imply that it is piracy to transfer any sort of content via the internet without a licence from whoever owns the copyright to it. That could be costly for firms that store media files in the “cloud” for paying clients, such as Apple and Google. As Stephen Breyer, one of the Supreme Court justices, said in this week's hearing, “What disturbs me…is I don't understand what the decision for you or against you…is going to do to all kinds of other technologies.”
許多人正關注著本案的進展。他們要確定本次的宣判是否意味著在網絡上傳播任何未經版權擁有者許可的內容，都會被認定為盜版行為。一旦如此，許多為付費用戶提供“云端”影音資料儲存的公司將會出現極大的經營成本負擔，比如蘋果和谷歌。最高法院的法官之一斯蒂芬·布雷耶在本周的聆訊過程當中表示：“困擾著我的問題是...我不能確定本案的判決會對其他各類科技產生什么樣的影響，無論好壞。”
