Term: 2013
Docket: 13-461
American Broadcasting Cos. v. Aereo, Inc.
- Pro
13-461 ABC, INC. V. AEREO, INC. DECISION BELOW: 712 F.3d 676 JUSTICE ALITO TOOK NO PART. 4/16/2014: Justice Alito is no longer recused. CERT. GRANTED 1/10/2014 QUESTION PRESENTED: A copyright holder possesses the exclusive right "to perform the copyrighted work publicly." 17 U.S.C. §106(4). In the Copyright Act of 1976, Congress defined the phrase "[t]o perform ... 'publicly'" to include, among other things, "to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work ... to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times." Id. §101. Congress enacted that provision with the express intent to bring within the scope of the public-performance right services that retransmit over-the-air television broadcasts to the public. Respondent Aereo offers just such a service. Aereo captures over-the-air television broadcasts and, without obtaining authorization from or compensating anyone, retransmits that programming to tens of thousands of members of the public over the Internet for a profit. According to the Second Circuit, because Aereo sends each of its subscribers an individualized transmission of a performance from a unique copy of each copyrighted program, it is not transmitting performances "to the public," but rather is engaged in tens of thousands of "private" performances to paying strangers. The question presented is: Whether a company "publicly performs" a copyrighted television program when it retransmits a broadcast of that program to thousands of paid subscribers over the Internet. LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 12-2786, 12-2807
In the case of American Broadcasting Companies v. Aereo, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the broadcasters, stating that Aereo's service violated copyright laws. The startup company Aereo had developed a system to capture broadcast signals on tiny antennas and transmit them over the internet to subscribers for a fee without paying any retransmission consent fees to broadcasters. The court held that this was equivalent to a public performance under copyright law and thus required permission from content owners or license holders. This decision effectively shut down Aereo as its business model relied heavily on not having to pay such fees.
In the dissenting opinion for American Broadcasting Cos. v. Aereo, Inc., Justice Scalia argued that Aereo did not perform at all and thus could not be held liable for infringing on exclusive rights of performance owners under copyright law. He contended that an entity only performs when it communicates previously recorded or stored images and sounds; otherwise, it merely supplies equipment to enable others to do so. According to him, Aereo's system was more akin to a copy shop providing its patrons with a library card than a cable company directly transmitting programs into viewers' homes since users had control over what content they accessed through their antennas rented from Aereo. Furthermore, he criticized the majority’s approach as distorting copyright law by imposing liability based on behind-the-scenes technological operations rather than focusing on who actually performed copyrighted works publicly.
