American Broadcasting Cos., Inc. v. Aereo, Inc.

134 S.Ct. 2498 (2014)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D offers subscribers broadcast television programming over the Internet. Much of this programming is made up of copyrighted works. When a subscriber wants to watch a show that is currently being broadcast, he visits D’s website, and one of D’s servers selects an antenna, which is designated to that subscriber for the duration of the show. The server then tunes the antenna to the over-the-air broadcast carrying the show. The antenna begins to receive the broadcast, and a D transcoder translates the signals received into data that can be transmitted over the Internet. The server saves the data creating a subscriber-specific copy-that is, a “personal” copy-of the subscriber’s program of choice. The data is then streamed to the subscriber over the Internet. Generally, the streaming continues, a mere few seconds behind the over-the-air broadcast, until the subscriber has received the entire show. D's system does not transmit data saved in one subscriber’s folder to any other subscriber. Ps are copyright owners of the programs that D streams. Ps brought suit against Aereo for copyright infringement. The District Court denied a preliminary injunction. A divided panel of the Second Circuit affirmed. It reasoned that D does not perform publicly within the meaning of the Transmit Clause because it does not transmit “to the public” because it streams a program to a subscriber and only to that subscriber. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.