Following the US Supreme Court victory for broadcasters, cloud based streaming TV service Aereo said the decision has de facto become a ‘cable operator’ and is willing to pay carriage fees to the broadcasters.
“From the beginning, it has been our mission to build a lawful technology that would provide consumers with more choice and alternatives in how they watch television. We believed that providing an innovative cloud-based individual antenna would provide consumers with a convenient way to use an antenna to watch the live, free-to-air signals broadcast over public spectrum that belongs to them,” wrote Aereo founder and CEO Chet Kanojia to Aereo users and supporters.
“Unfortunately, on June 25, the United States Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision in favor of Aereo, dealing a massive setback to consumers. With this most recent decision and in the spirit of remaining in compliance, we chose to pause our operations last week as we consulted with the lower court to map out our next steps.
“This has been a challenging journey for our team, but your support has continued to lift and propel us forward. We remain committed to building great technologies that create real, meaningful alternatives for consumers.”
Aereo filed a letter with the lower court, which can be viewed here. In the letter it says: “The Supreme court’s holding that Aereo is a cable system under the Copyright Act is significant because as a cable system Aereo is now entitled to the benefits of a statutory licence pursuant to the Copyright Act.”
