Aereo

Aereo is a New York based company that provides an online service streaming over-the air broadcasts on live and time-shifted streams. Retransmitting over-the-air broadcasts usually requires licensing fees to be paid to the original broadcasting agency. Aereo is attempting to create a legal loophole by requiring each subscriber to rent a unique antenna and unique DVR storage space, users are also required to be within the range of the broadcast that they are streaming or the service will be cut until the user reenters broadcast range . Regardless, a coalition of broadcasters including CBS, Comcast, Disney, 21st Century Fox, and others filed suit against Aereo. The legal ramifications of this are pretty far reaching. On one hand, there is legislation that requires Cable and satellite providers to pay licensing fees in order to retransmit over-the-air broadcasts. On the other there is a legal precedent, from the same district court that would have jurisdiction over Aereo, which says if a unique recording is used for a private performance the location of the recording device does not change its legality. In July 2012 a federal judge sided with Aereo and the decision was upheld at an appeals court in April 2013. The coalition of broadcasters filed a petition with the Supreme Court in October 2013 and as of January 2014 the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. This case exemplifies several of the issues were have discussed regarding copyright. It is very hard to argue that retransmitting or DVR services steal from the original broadcaster; by opening the broadcasts to a wider user-base, advertisements would reach more people and recover allow the original distributer to recover any lost profits by charging more for advertisements. If Aereo is able to survive this lawsuit, it could be step in the right direction for broadcast media.