Looking At the “Aereo” Decision

Ira Steven Nathenson, St. Thomas University School of Law, is publishing Airing Aereo’s Errors: Why the Supreme Court’s Internet Television Decision Should Be ‘Cancelled’ in volume 2 of the Journal of International and Comparative Law (2014). Here is the abstract.

This article scrutinizes the United States Supreme Court’s decision in American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. v. Aereo, Inc. Aereo’s streaming television service allowed subscribers to watch broadcast television on a computer, tablet, or smartphone without requiring them to be directly connected to cable, satellite, or a local antenna. Aereo’s system was designed to comply with existing copyright law by using thousands of antennas, each of which was designated for only one subscriber at a time. Aereo was sued for copyright infringement by a number of leading television broadcasters. The United States Supreme Court, over a heated Scalia dissent, concluded that Aereo was ‘highly similar’ to a cable company, and that it therefore made ‘public performances’ falling within the plaintiffs’ exclusive rights. Because the Aereo decision was unnecessary, unsound, and unwise, this article proposes steps that should be taken in order to avoid frustrating the development of beneficial ‘cloud’ computing services.

Download the full text of the Article from SSRN at the link.