ABC, Inc. v. Aereo
Rohil Parikh
Introduction
Aereo was founded in February of 2012, and went on to start one of the most heated technological debates of the decade. In March of 2012, Aereo opened its doors to users in New York and the battle begun. Aereo business strategy was to pick up over the air broadcasts and allowed viewers to view and record the broadcasts online. As Aereo expanded they faced a number of legal challenges. Aereo did not pay any of the retransmission fees that cable companies paid because they claimed that they were privately performing. Cable companies were not happy about Aereo dodging the retransmission fees, so American Broadcasting Companies (ABC) sued Aereo.
A federal appeals court ruled that Aereo’s business practices were legal based on the Second Circuit’s ruling of the Cablevision case. This ruling stated that Cablevision’s business practices were legal…show more content… Justice Breyer crafted the majority opinion which stated that Aereo was similar to community antenna television (CATV). This opinion was joined by Justice Roberts, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan. This means that Aereo is violation of the Copyright Act, and so they would have to negotiate a contract with broadcasters to continue. They also came to this conclusion that because Aereo sends audio and video to many unrelated people they perform publicly. The opinion was odd as both parties has explicitly stated that Aereo was not a cable company, and should not be looked at as such.
Justice Scalia crafted the dissenting opinion which stated that Aereo only provides a platform for a customer, and since Aereo does not play any role in selecting the content it should be accountable for the transmission of the content. He was joined by Justice Thomas and Alito. The dissenting opinion also stated that making Aereo a CATV made the decision of the Supreme Court too broad to be used.
Impact of the