The digital company captures over-the-air TV signals and relays
them to subscribers' digital devices. The broadcasters have contended this is
an infringement on their copyrights and specifically, a violation of their
performance rights. A New York
federal judge, however, refused to grant an injunction on the grounds that each
Aereo subscriber was receiving a private, individualized transmission stream.
In April, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that denial.
On Friday, the broadcasters filed a petition for writ of
certiorari.
According to the petition, the question being presented is
"whether a company 'publicly performs' a copyrighted television program
when it retransmits a broadcast of that program to thousands of paid
subscribers over the Internet."
The petitioners say that the 2nd Circuit ruling "threatens
to upend" the billions of dollars that the TV industry has invested in
programming "by blessing a business model that retransmits 'live TV' to
paying customers without obtaining any authorization or paying a penny to the
copyright owners."
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