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Supreme Court rules Aereo violates copyright
2014-06-25 17:12:00| Telecompaper Headlines
(Telecompaper) US TV networks have won their lawsuit against the TV service Aereo. The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 vote that Aereo is in violation of copyright law when it streams free-to-air TV channels to consumers. Aereo provides a cloud DVR service, giving customers on-demand access to programming from the main channels in the US. It had refused to pay carriage fees to the broadcasters, saying customers had the right to receive the channels for personal use over the individual antennas used for the service. The court said Aereo is no different from other video providers such as cable networks, because the content it sends to viewers constitutes a "public performance", the Washington Post reported. Aereo had argued that its service was merely an extension of traditional cloud-based DVR services. Among the dissenting judges, Antonin Scalia compared Aereo to a "copy shop that provides its patrons with a library card". He argued that Aereo didn't transmit anything at all its customers play the content to themselves, and so couldn't have violated copyright law.
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Category:Telecommunications