The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that the Aereo service, which allowed its subscribers access via the Internet to local broadcasts of television programs on their home and mobile devices, infringed the copyrights of the plaintiff media companies.1 Consumers, who hoped they had found an economical alternative to costly cable company subscriptions, were disappointed. Broadcasters, which reap billions of dollars in retransmission fees, were elated. And anyone seeking a broad set of copyright principles to guide emerging technologies related to broadcast television will have to wait for another day.
Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote for the six-justice majority, took pains to characterize the decision as a “limited holding” that was not intended to intrude upon cloud storage and other digital technologies. But the dissenting opinion of Justice Antonin Scalia (joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas) voiced concern that the majority’s “test-free, ad hoc, case-by-case evaluation” will require “years, perhaps decades, to determine which automated systems now in existence …[will] get the Aereo treatment.”
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