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Upset Aereo TV Service Loses Copyright Case In Supreme Court

Upset Aereo TV Service Loses Copyright Case In Supreme Court

By David G. Savage, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has ruled that Aereo, the upstart television streaming service, violated copyright laws by resending broadcast signals without paying licensing fees.

In a 6-3 decision, justices said the law forbids unlicensed companies to “transmit” copyrighted shows to the viewing public. Aereo argued, unsuccessfully, that it was transmitting signals to individual customers through the use of tiny rented antennas.

The decision is a major victory for TV broadcasters, who depend increasingly on licensing revenues from cable and satellite services.

Two veteran Washington attorneys, Paul Clement and David Frederick, presented the contrasting arguments in the case, ABC v. Aereo.

Clement, a former solicitor general who represented ABC and other broadcasters, called Aereo a “gimmick” that allows “thousands of paying strangers to watch live TV online” without paying a licensing fee to the broadcasters for their copyrighted programs.

This violates the Copyright Act of 1976, he said, adopted in part to deal with the advent of cable TV service. Broadcasters were given an exclusive right to any program that is “publicly” performed or transmitted to the public “by means of any device or process.” This could describe a cable TV tower, and it also describes Aereo precisely, he said.

But Aereo came up with what some say is an ingenious way around the law. It denies that its service amounts to a “public” airing of programs, but is merely a new way for individual consumers to watch programs they could see for free.

The service works like this: In New York, subscribers rent a tiny antenna devoted to their own individual use at a Brooklyn facility. Through it, they capture free over-the-air TV signals in the area. Frederick, representing Aereo, compared this to a set of old-fashioned “rabbit ears” on a TV.

“It’s no different than if I’m at home, and I have an antenna or rabbit ears on my TV, and I know what channels I can get,” Frederick said. “Consumers have a right to get over-the-air signals that are free to the public,” he added.

He likened Aereo to the 1980s-era video recorders that allowed consumers to record copies of programs to be viewed at home. In 1984, the high court ruled that recording programs at home for later viewing did not violate copyright laws.

Justice Department attorney Malcolm Stewart, in a brief appearance, said the government agrees with broadcasters that Aereo is violating copyright laws by transmitting broadcast signals without a license. Among the broadcasters that urged the court to shut down Aereo was Tribune Co., parent company of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune.

Aereo charges as little as $8 a month for its service and allows subscribers to store 20 hours of programming or more for later viewing. Besides New York, it is available in Baltimore, Boston, Atlanta, Detroit, Cincinnati, Miami and several cities in Texas.

Photo: OZinOH via Flickr

Top U.S. Court Rules Against Internet TV Startup Aereo

Top U.S. Court Rules Against Internet TV Startup Aereo

Washington (AFP) – A startup which captures over-the-air television on the Internet violates copyright laws, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, in a major case affecting the tech sector and TV industries.

The court ruled 6-3 that Aereo illegally retransmits broadcast signals, despite the claim that its tiny personalized antennas merely allow customers to watch or record what would be free TV programs.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the majority opinion that Aereo effectively operates like a cable company and must therefore pay for broadcast rights.

The decision is a major victory for the broadcast and cable industries, which claimed that Aereo was threatening their business models.

Breyer said the case “makes clear that Aereo is not simply an equipment provider” but that its “activities are substantially similar to those of the (cable) companies.”

“Aereo sells a service that allows subscribers to watch television programs, many of which are copyrighted, almost as they are being broadcast,” he wrote in the opinion.

The top U.S. court reversed a lower court decision in favor of Aereo, and sent the case back for further proceedings.

At stake are billions of dollars in fees paid by cable and satellite firms, which Aereo circumvents, in what could be the most significant copyright case in decades.

©afp.com / Andrew Burton

Supreme Court Hears Arguments In Aereo Online TV Case

Supreme Court Hears Arguments In Aereo Online TV Case

By Vera Bergengruen, McClatchy Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court justices seemed torn Tuesday as they listened to the arguments in a complex technological case involving copyright law, the rights of TV broadcasters and a video startup called Aereo that is upending how viewers access television.

While skeptical of Aereo’s service, which is based on a technological loophole to get around copyright laws, the justices worried that siding with broadcasters could endanger the same Internet cloud services that millions of people use to access and store all kinds of digital files.

Aereo lets users in 11 cities stream local broadcast TV to their computers, phones and tablets by renting them a tiny antenna and cloud storage for a small fee. Broadcasters including ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox claim that Aereo’s service illegally steals their copyrighted content. If the court rules in favor of the startup, it could threaten the lucrative fees the networks receive from cable companies to transmit their content. Broadcasters want Aereo to either pay similar fees or shut down.

“Your technological model is based solely on circumventing legal prohibitions that you don’t want to comply with,” Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. told Aereo’s lawyer, David Frederick.

“There’s no reason for you to have 10,000 dime-sized antennas except to get around the Copyright Act,” Roberts said.

The entire case hinges on whether Aereo is engaging in a “public” or “private” performance when it transmits content. Aereo has a data center in each city where it operate thousands of dime-size antennas. When a subscriber wants to watch a show live or record it, the company temporarily assigns the customer an antenna and transmits the programming to the subscriber’s tablet, phone or Internet TV.

Since the potential audience is only one person, it should be considered a private performance, not a public performance regulated by the Copyright Act, Aereo argued.

Lawyers on both sides used analogies ranging from valet parking to coat checks to clarify the complex technological issues at hand. The broadcasters’ counsel explained that Aereo’s users aren’t accessing the service to watch something online that they have already bought — they are using it to get that content in the first place.

“I show up at the car dealership without a car, I’m going to be able to get a car. If I show up at the valet parking service and I don’t own a car, it’s not going to end well for me,” the broadcasters’ counsel, Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general, said to laughter in the packed courtroom.

Just as disturbing to some of the justices, however, are the unintended and far-reaching implications an Aereo loss could have on the cloud services industry.

“Are we somehow catching other things that really will change life but shouldn’t, such as the cloud?” asked Justice Stephen Breyer.

The “cloud” storage Aereo provides lets users record and store programs on a remote server instead of directly on their computer, where they can access their shows anytime, from anywhere.

Technology groups have expressed their concern that a ruling against Aereo would stifle innovation and endanger popular apps such as Google Drive, iCloud and Dropbox. Since those services are also used to remotely access copyrighted content, like legally purchased songs or movies, they could end up in murky legal territory if Aereo loses, some groups say. There isn’t any fresh copyright law regarding the new cloud services that are springing up.

“The cloud industry is freaked out about this case,” said Frederick, the lawyer for Aereo.

Clement insisted that the justices should not try to “solve the problem of the cloud once and for all” in this case, but instead focus on the plain violation of copyright law in front of them.

If Aereo’s service is really based on innovative technology it will survive anyway, argued Clement.

“If all they have is a gimmick, then they probably will go out of business and nobody should cry a tear over that,” he said.

The Supreme Court is expected to reach a decision by early summer.

AFP Photo/Saul Loeb

Supreme Court Justices Cautious About Broadcasters’ Bid To Shut Aereo

Supreme Court Justices Cautious About Broadcasters’ Bid To Shut Aereo

By David G. Savage, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court justices sounded uncertain and conflicted Wednesday in trying to decide whether a TV streaming service that allows users to receive their favorite programs through tiny, rented antennas violates the broadcasters’ copyrights.

The case of ABC v. Aereo has the potential to reshape the broadcast and cable industries if the Brooklyn-based upstart prevails in the high court. And that appeared possible after Tuesday’s argument.

An attorney for the broadcasting industry urged the court to shut down Aereo. It allows “tens of thousands of paying strangers” to watch the programs they wish, but without paying any copyright fees to broadcasters. If Aereo prevails, some experts think the cable and satellite companies may decide to stream their own signals in the same way Aereo does and refuse to pay licensing fees to the broadcasters.

Before Wednesday’s argument, most legal experts were convinced the justices would rule against Aereo’s service as a violation of copyright laws. But that certainty faded during the hour-long argument. Several justices admitted they were struggling for the right answer.

The broadcast industry relies heavily on a provision in the copyright law that a television broadcast may not be aired “publicly” without the permission of the broadcaster. Cable and satellite companies pay fees to broadcast networks to transmit those signals to their subscribers, but Aereo does not.

The competing lawyers argued over whether a customer of Aereo’s service is receiving a “public” performance of a copyright broadcast or instead is watching a private show at home.

The attorney for Aereo said its service was like the videocassette recorders that became popular in the 1980s, which allowed homeowners to make copies of programs to be viewed at home.

Aereo “could rent DVRs in Brooklyn, and it would be the same situation,” said Washington attorney David Frederick. He added that Aereo’s tiny antennas “pick up over-the-air signals that are free to the public.”

But former Solicitor General Paul Clement, representing ABC and other broadcasters, said Aereo had devised “a gimmick” to make money by sending TV signals to thousands of paying customers. This large-scale streaming is clearly a “public performance,” he said, not a private one at home.

Justice Department attorney Malcolm Stewart said the government agreed with the broadcasters that Aereo was violating copyright laws by transmitting broadcast signals without a license.

Twice during the argument, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said Aereo had designed its system to “circumvent” the restrictions in the copyright law. But that did not necessarily mean it was illegal, he added.

The justices are expected to reach a decision by late June.

AFP Photo/Karen Bleier