The Supreme Court of the United States held that Aereo publicly performed copyrighted television programs and therefore could be liable for copyright infringement under the Copyright Act’s Transmit Clause.
Parties and claims
Plaintiffs American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. and other television producers, distributors, and broadcasters sued defendant Aereo, Inc. for copyright infringement, alleging that its internet streaming service retransmitted over-the-air television programming to paying subscribers without a license.
Requested relief (District Court)
Plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to block Aereo’s service, arguing that Aereo infringed their exclusive public performance right by capturing broadcast signals with thousands of antennas, creating subscriber-specific copies, and streaming the programs over the internet.
The district court denied the preliminary injunction, finding that plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on the merits because Aereo’s system resembled the remote DVR system approved in Cartoon Network v. Cablevision, where transmissions from unique copies to individual users were not considered “public.”
Court of Appeals (Second Circuit)
The Second Circuit affirmed the denial of the preliminary injunction, agreeing that Aereo’s transmissions were not “to the public” under the Transmit Clause because each transmission was made from a unique copy to a single subscriber.
Supreme Court ruling
The Supreme Court reversed the Second Circuit and held that Aereo performed plaintiffs’ works publicly within the meaning of the Transmit Clause, then remanded the case for further proceedings.
The Court reasoned that Congress amended the 1976 Copyright Act to bring cable-like retransmission services within the statute, and Aereo’s system was functionally similar to such services despite its use of individual antennas and separate copies. Aereo was not merely an equipment provider because it operated a centralized system that received broadcast signals and transmitted them to subscribers. The Court also concluded that these transmissions were made “to the public” because Aereo communicated the same contemporaneously perceptible images and sounds to many unrelated paying subscribers, regardless of the use of separate copies or individualized transmissions.
American Broadcasting Cos., Inc. v. Aereo, Inc., 573 U.S. 431 (2014)