SCOTUS TV-via-Internet case could affect the cloud

The Supreme Court of the United States will hear a case Tuesday that could have ramifications for cloud service providers and consumers who store legally acquired copyrighted material in the cloud. The case involves a suit by major TV networks against Aereo, which lets consumers watch over-the-air broadcasts on Internet-connected computers, tablets, and phones.

Both sides concede that consumers have the right to access over-the-air TV channels via an antenna—that's the point of over-the-air broadcast TV. However, consumers don't equip their mobile devices with VHF rabbit ears or UHF loops.

Aereo claims it is essentially renting its antennas and digital-video recorders to its mobile-device-wielding subscribers and therefore has no need to compensate broadcast networks with the retransmission fees that cable companies must pay.

According to Brendan Sasso writing in National Journal, tech firms fear that if Aereo loses the case, companies including Google, Amazon, Apple, and Dropbox that let consumers store legally acquired copyrighted material in their clouds could find themselves in legal jeopardy.

Saso writes that the Computer and Communications Industry Association—which includes Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Aereo among its members—warns that “a ruling against Aereo could result in 'years of costly litigation, chilling much valuable innovation in the meantime.'”

Gordon Smith, the president of the National Association of Broadcasters, makes the case against Aereo. As quoted by Cecilia Kang and Robert Barnes in the Washington Post, he said, “Quite simply, Aereo takes copyrighted material, profits from it, and does so without compensating copyright holders.”

“But,” write  Kang and Barnes, “Aereo argues that it is entitled to draw freely from programs transmitted on public airwaves—an argument that, if successful, has the potential to blow apart the expensive channel bundles that have been forced on American households and radically reduce the cost of watching television.”