Broadcasters CBS (PARA -0.47%), Comcast (CMCSA -0.37%), Twenty-First Century Fox (FOXA), and Walt Disney (DIS 0.18%) are celebrating a big Supreme Court win over Aereo, which has officially "paused" operations in an effort to figure out next steps. Does the ruling mean it's unsafe to invest in other cloud-based services for storing and streaming entertainment?
Guest host Alison Southwick puts this question to Fool analysts Nathan Alderman and Tim Beyers in this episode of 1-Up on Wall Street, The Motley Fool's Web show in which we talk about the big-money names behind your favorite movies, toys, video games, comics, and more.
Tim says the ruling was expected, if only because Aereo didn't offer much in the way of a technical breakthrough. Yet the popularity of the service, and the ensuing court fight, proves there's a market for broadcast TV that's viewable on-demand via the Internet. In the meantime, the court stressed that the ruling is limited. There's no reason to believe that legally purchased content stored in the cloud -- and the services that provide such storage, including Dropbox -- will be in any way affected.
Nathan says the ruling was disappointing because, for as much as the plaintiffs complained that Aereo was "stealing" content it didn't pay for, each network is afforded the luxury of broadcasting that same content freely over airwaves that it doesn't pay for. The irony shouldn't be lost on investors, who can expect to see more efforts to disrupt the incumbent networks in the months and years to come.
Now it's your turn to weigh in. Click the video to watch as Alison puts Nathan and Tim on the spot, and then leave a comment below tell us what you think of the Aereo ruling. You can also follow us on Twitter for more segments and regular geek news updates!
