Aereo’s streaming TV service is “just the tip...
Aereo’s streaming TV service is “just the tip of the iceberg” if the decision of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that its network of tiny antennas constitutes a private performance is allowed to stand, said broadcasters in a…
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Brief for Petitioners filed with the U.S. Supreme Court Monday. By legitimizing Aereo’s business model, the 2nd Circuit “created a gaping hole in copyright law that threatens the existence of broadcast TV as we know it,” the broadcaster filing said. Aereo’s and the 2nd Circuit’s understanding of copyright law could be interpreted to allow the retransmission of New York local broadcasting to viewers in California, and allow cable and satellite companies to devise similar systems of their own to get around the retransmission consent regime, said broadcasters. The decision could also cripple broadcaster efforts to advance in the world of over-the-top TV, where they have been careful to “meet consumer demand in ways that maximize, rather then undermine, the value of their copyrighted content,” said the filing. That could cause broadcasters to reconsider providing their programming to the public for free, the filing said, echoing comments made last year by Fox executive Chase Carey. Broadcaster efforts to control copyright shouldn’t be seen as thwarting innovation, the filing said. The choice is between “incentivizing” tech that advances how content is viewed while respecting copyright, and encouraging technology that “offers no real advances but simply provides a superficial basis for eluding copyright liability,” the broadcasters said. The broadcaster filing also attacks statements by Aereo that connect the case to the future of cloud computing. “There is an obvious difference between a service that merely stores and provided an individual user access copies of copyrighted content that the user already has legally obtained, and a service that offers the copyrighted content itself to the public at large,” the filing said.