How to build LocalTV Part 1: Legal

This is the first of a multi part series where we detail the steps we took to make LocalTV+ a reality. The hope is that others in other parts of the country can emulate this process to make their own “LocalTV+” that serves their own community. People often ask if we will expand and the answer is always no. Beyond the legality of it, we will not expand because this service is run by three guys with day jobs who volunteer their time. Since it picks up actual TV signals there is a need for someone to be physically be present in each market to setup and maintain the antenna and encoder hardware.

This first post will deal with the legality of the service. This post is not legal advice and I am not a lawyer. This is simply what we did. However I would stress that this is likely the most important step for anyone looking to start a similar service.

LocalTV+ exists because US copyright law explicitly mentions how secondary transmissions can be legal. Specifically it says:

(a)Certain Secondary Transmissions Exempted.—The secondary transmission of a performance or display of a work embodied in a primary transmission is not an infringement of copyright if—

(5)the secondary transmission is not made by a cable system but is made by a governmental body, or other nonprofit organization, without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage, and 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.

To do this we created a non profit, Mass Local TV Inc which runs LocalTV+, owns its physical assets, bank accounts, application source code etc. In addition, we decided that our non profit would be a 501(c)(3) non profit where donations are tax exempt. In Massachusetts, we also had to file paperwork with the state to allow us to legally fundraise in the state. We used a service called BryteBridge to actual handle and file all of our legal paper work. Unlike many other things we did, this is a step where we have not gone with the most inexpensive option. Technically this is not necessary. You could follow any number of guides on line to do this yourself. This is just what we chose to do.

We made some additional decisions, you may note that the law above actually does allow charging for the service “to defray the actual and reasonable costs of maintaining and operating the secondary transmission service” . We made a decision to try to offer this as a free, donation funded service. This would allow us to avoid one of the traps that Locast fell into. They charged $5 a month and generated millions of dollars in revenue. On a similar note we are careful to have no ads or privacy invading metrics in the app. We also provide an unmodified signal. What you see is what we picked up on the antenna. There are no interruptions or preroll ads on the stream.

We use a service called Givebutter to handle our online donations. This isn’t technically necessary and many people have actually donated via check. We use this service because it’s easy, cheap ($1 or so when we withdraw) and takes care of the security aspect of dealing with credit card transactions. It allows us to focus on the technology.

For the iOS and tvOS AppStores as a non profit, Apple waives our $99/yr developer fee. It comes with certain restrictions with respect to in app purchases but it is a restriction we are willing to accept right now to keep costs down.

Part 2 onwards we will discuss how we use open source code, in expensive hardware and modern technology to reduce costs.