TV Service Aereo Facing the End?

The US Supreme Court had to decide the legal question of whether the online service www.aereo.com infringed the copyrights of TV broadcasters by converting local terrestrial television into an online TV stream.

The online service www.aereo.com converts local terrestrial television into a livestream for computers, tablets or smartphones. To do this, the company operates thousands of antennas in a large warehouse, each of which is allocated to a customer and rented to them for a sum of approximately €6.- per month. Aereo customers select their desired TV programme on the internet and choose it. The services of this subscription also include the recording of broadcasts in the cloud.

Several major television broadcasters had sued Aereo, as they saw their copyrights infringed in the provision of the livestream. The converted TV formats were intellectual property of the TV broadcasters and must not be commercially reproduced by a third party.

Aereo itself, however, sees no legal difference to an antenna on the home television set; it merely offers a technical solution for watching television.

Court Decision

With judgment of 22.04.2014 the US Supreme Court (No. 13-461) decided that the services of the online service infringed the copyrights of the TV broadcasters.

The Supreme Court thereby equates Aereo with cable network operators, as they ultimately also merely forwarded third-party content to TV viewers. In doing so, it could make no difference that no permanent forwarding took place, but rather that users only called up TV broadcasts "on demand".

Conclusion

After cable network operators have to pay the TV broadcasters approximately USD 3 billion annually for the distribution of US television programmes, the Supreme Court's decision will mean the end of the online service.