ABC v. Aereo and the Humble Judge
American Broadcasting Cos., Inc. v. Aereo, Inc. was a lawyer’s case if ever there was one. Aereo, a New York-based tech startup, offered a service that allowed subscribers to watch local broadcast television through an internet connection, thus bypassing the need for cable serviceto receive ordinary network programming. The trouble is that copyright law forbids retransmitting television programs to the public without the copyright-holder’s consent, which doesn’t come cheap. Aereo, however, thought it could avoid any copyright problems through an unusual set-up. It devised a system in which it maintained thousands of tiny television antennas, each about the size of a dime. A subscriber watching a program through Aereo’s service would be assigned a unique antenna. The signal from the antenna would then be converted into a digital file on Aereo’s computers, again assigned only to the subscriber, which the subscriber could then watch through a streaming interface virtually simultaneous with the broadcast over the airwaves. The system was intended to capitalize on previously recognized limits on the scope of copyright law.
Despite this peculiar arrangement, Aereo was immediately sued by various broadcast television interests holding copyrights in material Aereo subscribers received. Broadcast television is given to viewers for free, of course, and broadcasters have traditionally derived the bulk of their revenues from advertising. One might think broadcasters would be enthusiastic about the prospect of distributing their material more widely and easily. But the broadcast networks have become increasingly dependent on royalties paid by cable companies, which themselves enjoy considerable market power. By repelling Aereo, broadcasters preserved the ability to base their business model on recouping a portion of the subscription fees cable providers receive from their customers, rather than on advertising alone.
