Aereo Case Headed to Supreme Court; Cloud Computing in the balance?

Grazed from ProjectDisco. Autho: Matt Schruers.

After two years of back-and-forth litigation between broadcasters and Aereo (a CCIA member), the Supreme Court agreed today to hear an appeal of the Second Circuit’s decision in favor of Aereo. (S.Ct. Dkt. No. 13-461). The court’s eventual decision as to the legality of Aereo’s streaming TV service will have significant ramifications in the cloud computing industry. When broadcasters sought Supreme Court review late last year, Aereo took the unconventional position of agreeing to review for a case it had won, explaining that it wanted to fight on the merits, rather than wage a "wasteful war of attrition."

Aereos technology, which is available in major cities including New York, Boston, Atlanta, and Houston, gives subscribers access to their locally available broadcast television signals via arrays of user-controlled remote antennas. Broadcasters contend that this remote access violates their public performance rights under the Copyright Act…

We recently updated our popular infographic explaining the sprawling multi-district litigation between broadcasters, Aereo, and another service called FilmOn X. As Aereo’s statement today made clear, modern cloud computing services rely upon legal principles established in a 2008 case known as "Cablevision" – principles which are threatened by the broadcaster’ litigation:…

Read more from the source @ http://www.project-disco.org/intellectual-property/011014aereo-case-headed-to-supreme-court/