TV-over-internet service seeks protection in wake of Supreme Court ruling
Aereo, an online startup that tried to offer a cheaper alternative to cable TV, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection less than five months after an unfavorable ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The company backed by media mogul Barry Diller allowed people to watch and record broadcast TV online for $8 a month on tablets, phones and other gadgets. Unlike Hulu and other online video services, Aereo offered live streaming of broadcast channels.
The Supreme Court ruled this summer that Aereo had been operating like a cable TV company, meaning that unless it paid broadcasters licensing fees, it was in violation of copyright law.
Aereo suspended its operations three days later.
The company got its start in New York and had expanded to about 10 other metropolitan areas, including Boston, Houston and Atlanta, though it never disclosed how many subscribers it had.
The Supreme Court decision "effectively changed the laws that had governed Aereo's technology, creating regulatory and legal uncertainty," CEO Chet Kanojia said.
The Chapter 11 filing will allow Aereo Inc. to maximize the value of its business while avoiding the cost and distraction of litigation, said Kanojia.
Aereo didn't provide many details about what it would do with its technology but in a March interview with The Associated Press, Kanojia said the company's Internet-based recording technology was itself valuable.
"The fact that we've created this cloud-based system at a cost point, and it works, is going to have a lot of value to a lot of people," he said then.
Potential buyers of that technology could include cable-television operators that are trying to maintain subscriber levels by offering new ways to watch TV online. Cable operators pay broadcasters millions of dollars in licensing fees, and would not be subject to the same legal challenges.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More