http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/25/5801052/aereo-supreme-court-ruling
The Supreme Court struck a dramatic blow against Aereo today in a ruling that puts the TV streaming service as it currently exists on its deathbed. In a 6–3 ruling, the court found that Aereo's service violates the Copyright Act by playing back recordings of broadcasters' TV shows — even though it legally captures those shows over the air and obtains individual copies for each viewer. Aereo had argued that it was merely providing technology that its subscribers were renting in order to watch TV, posing that the viewers were responsible for playing back those recordings.
"Insofar as there are differences, those differences concern not the nature of the service that Aereo provides so much as the technological manner in which it provides the service," the ruling reads. "We conclude that those differences are not adequate to place Aereo’s activities outside the scope of the [Copyright] Act."
The ruling is one of the most important seen by the television industry since the 1984 Betamax case but in many ways will have an opposite effect, stifling one area of innovation that was beginning to force the industry out of its comfort zone. Some broadcasters had even said that they would open their own Aereo competitors if the service were found to be legal. Instead, this ruling fully removes Aereo and copycat services as a threat.
RIP
The Supreme Court struck a dramatic blow against Aereo today in a ruling that puts the TV streaming service as it currently exists on its deathbed. In a 6–3 ruling, the court found that Aereo's service violates the Copyright Act by playing back recordings of broadcasters' TV shows — even though it legally captures those shows over the air and obtains individual copies for each viewer. Aereo had argued that it was merely providing technology that its subscribers were renting in order to watch TV, posing that the viewers were responsible for playing back those recordings.
"Insofar as there are differences, those differences concern not the nature of the service that Aereo provides so much as the technological manner in which it provides the service," the ruling reads. "We conclude that those differences are not adequate to place Aereo’s activities outside the scope of the [Copyright] Act."
The ruling is one of the most important seen by the television industry since the 1984 Betamax case but in many ways will have an opposite effect, stifling one area of innovation that was beginning to force the industry out of its comfort zone. Some broadcasters had even said that they would open their own Aereo competitors if the service were found to be legal. Instead, this ruling fully removes Aereo and copycat services as a threat.
RIP
