Gurumurthy Kalyanaram reports on lawsuits and policies and in this brief particularly on the US Supreme Court’s ruling on Aereo’s New Broadcast Technology in a lawsuit filed by the major broadcasting companies.
Aereo’s used satellite technology and broadcast TV signals for free, and the broadcasting companies filed a lawsuit arguing that Aereo was obligated to pay licensing fees to the broadcasting companies. While Aereo found a sympathetic audience in the Second Circuit Appellate Court, the US Supreme Court ruled against Aereo.
Aereo’s basic technology is as follows. Aereo uses countless individual antennas to grab broadcast TV signals out of the air for free, and then sell access to those signals to consumers over the Internet. With the service, you could record the CBS Evening News and play it back to yourself online as if you were taping it with a DVR.
