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A comment on Supreme court: Aereo is violating copyright law [pdf]. Parent comment

Re:Supreme court: Aereo is violating copyright law [pdf] by dragonwriter on Wednesday June 25, 2014 @12:21PM (#7944926)
> Well, the problem is that Aereo probably could not have prevailed at SCOTUS, because SCOTUS looks to precedent. In this case, their interpretation of the precedent itself (Copyright Act of 1976) was accurate, even if that precedent is out of date in our eyes.

You are confusing enactments (things like the Constitution and statute law, like the Copyright Act) with precedent (prior rulings of courts applying the same law). These are fundamentally different things, thought the court looks to both

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Re:Supreme court: Aereo is violating copyright law [pdf] by jonnathanson on Wednesday June 25, 2014 @02:48PM (#7945978)
Sorry, was a misnomer on my part. I was using "precedent" in the broad sense, i.e., to mean a preexisting reference point. But you're quite right in that the term has a very specific legal meaning, and I should have been more mindful of that. (IANAL, and I should probably preface a lot more of my legal discussions with that.)

Nevertheless, I think my point still stands. Court needs to find, sort, and prioritize reference points essentially.

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