LOCAST Receives Unfavorable Court Rulling
Locast TV was given an unfavorable court ruling today for future re-broadcast: Locast Nation In the big media companies' lawsuit against Locast, the court just issued a disappointing ruling. We ...
Forum Discussion
Dutch_12078 wrote:
Did you miss this part of the pertinent law? "...without charge to the recipients of the secondary transmission other than assessments necessary to defray the actual and reasonable costs of maintaining and operating the secondary transmission service."
(emphasis added)
Locast has dropped the 15 minute donation pleas though, at least during the legal proceedings.
I think you hit on the key issue. It was not the copyright question driving the ruling, but the method Locast used to get the funds they need to support (or expand) their service. Non-profits have to be cautious not to appear operating like a for profit organization.
Perhaps it would be better not to offer any free streaming version, but require all users to pay annual membership fee for access to defray their costs? Though this won't necessarily prevent filing lawsuits to kill the service.
