Aereo, the soon to be defunct video rebroadcasting company, assumes that television viewers will be thinking about its loss before the U.S. Supreme Court as they watch fireworks, wave flags and eat hot dogs this 4th of July Weekend. I believe that’s called a delusion of grandeur.
Last week the Supreme Court ruled that Aereo was taking creative content and rebroadcasting it without a license. There’s a technical term for that. It’s called stealing. That was the basis of its business model and the media and Aereo itself announced that it was finished. It pulled the plug last weekend.
Aereo seems to have rethought its position, and is now intent on not fading quietly into the night. The company has just launched a PR campaign that intends to energize consumers behind Aereo’s “right” to steal content without compensating artists of all stripes. That “grassroots” campaign is undoubtedly financed by investors like media mogul Barry Diller who had invested quite a bit in Aereo’s success. Actually, it was not as much as investment as a gamble, a gamble that the Supreme Court would validate Aereo’s business model.
As we head into this Fourth of July Holiday Weekend Aereo would do well to remember that the Declaration of Independence grants Americans “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The pursuit of happiness has often been defined as the right to go after what makes one happy. That has been interpreted to include financial and artistic fulfillment. That’s what artists and content creators are after.
Innovators and entrepreneurs also pursue happiness every day, and I’ll be the first one to say that is one of the things that makes this country great. It fosters innovation and creativity, and I’m proud of that. That right, however, stops well short of the “right” to appropriate the the hard earned work of others. Aereo’s founders and investors would best be advised to take the weekend to nurse their wounds, drink a couple of beers and come out of the gates on Monday with an original idea better suited to their talents and finances.
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