Aereo's Legal And Ethical Concerns And Technology Impact

Aereo’s Legal and Ethical Concerns and EFF’s take on Technology Impact Broadcasters comprising CBS Corp., NBC Universal, Fox, ABC and Univision Com; sued Aereo Inc. for copyright violation when it started streaming television signals over internet to consumers in New York City in 2012 for a monthly payment (Ramachandran, 2013). Industry executives stated that the service by Aereo could threaten huge capital in fees that satellite and cable satellite operators paid to broadcasters. News Corp. asserted that Aereo has pirated the NC’s broadcast signal. However, Aereo has defended its system that on-air, the broadcast signals are entirely free. With backing from Media mogul B Diller, Aereo has always argued that it has merely offered the technology

The Jury asked if Aereo had the right to make wealth off recording the content and stated that in 1976, the Congress had approved for documenting the Copyright law to cover any process or device that exists or believed to exist in future for the broadcast signal to be retransmitted (PBS, 2014). The defense showed the worth of Sony Betamax case where the Court’s verdict facilitated future innovation (PBS, 2014). But in June 2014, the SC ruled that Aereo has infringed the Copyright law by reversing the district court’s decision and gave ruling that Aereo had carried out ‘publicly’ works by petitioners and Aereo’s service enables users to watch TV programs, most of which have copyright protection (Chappell, 2014). The Court, in its decision, refused to apply the analysis it used in prior cases of copyright violation including those technologically aided transmission such as direct breach has to include an action of volitional behavior aimed at copyrighted content. Post its SC defeat in June, Aereo decided to shelve all its services (Lee,