US Supreme Court downs Aereo

The US Supreme Court has held (6:3) that Aereo infringes copyright by publicly performing the protected material.

You may recall that Aereo has warehouses full of recording devices which an individual subscriber could rent and record over the air television broadcasts on, then play back to their tv, computer, tablet or smart phone.

In dissent, Scalia J (joined by Thomas and Alito JJ) was highly critical of the “purposive” approach to statutory interpretation adopted by the majority:

The Court’s conclusion that Aereo performs boils down to the following syllogism: (1) Congress amended the Act to overrule our decisions holding that cable systems do not perform when they retransmit over-the-air broadcasts; (2) Aereo looks a lot like a cable system; therefore (3) Aereo performs.  …. That reasoning suffers from a trio of defects ….

So Aereo joins Optus TV Now on the defunct list.

American Broadcasting Cos Inc v Aereo Inc

Lid dip: Marty and Patently-O

 

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