If you’re one of the many people who have cut the cord and moved from cable to streaming TV, you’ve probably lost access to most, or all, of your local stations. And your options (unless you want to reattach that cable box) are limited. You can buy a separate antenna in order to access these stations, but your reception may be limited by how strong the signals are and whether they are blocked by nearby structures. So what do you do?
There is currently at least one service that is trying to fill the gap. Locast is a relatively recent streaming service that offers access to local broadcasting.
How can Locast do this? Unlike Aereo, a commercial service which provided local programming until it was shot down by the Supreme Court in 2014, Locast has registered as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit advocacy group (under the auspices of the Sports Fan Coalition). According to its FAQ, since it doesn’t get any “direct or indirect commercial advantage” from the transmissions, it has the right to broadcast local stations.
The FAQ also cites Locast’s ability to charge a fee “necessary to defray the actual and reasonable costs” of providing the service. Technically, Locast doesn’t charge a fee — it asks for contributions of at least $5 per month.
Last week, all four major broadcasters (ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox) filed a copyright suit against Locast.... The best way to understand the history of this approach is through the lense of Aereo, a similar service that was sued out of existence in 2014. Broadcast is free to anyone with an antenna, so Aereo allowed users to rent an antenna and a DVR in Aereo’s warehouse, which got better broadcast reception than many homes. Users could then record and stream broadcast content over the internet. Broadcasters sued Aereo, that the service violated their copyrights. As Public Knowledge’s John Bergmayer noted at the time of the Aereo lawsuit, it doesn’t make any more sense for Aereo to be violating copyright by renting out antennas than it does for Radio Shack to be in violation for selling those antennas out of its storefront.
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