Pursuits
Aereo's Legal Battles Rest on the Meaning of 'Public Performance'
The Supreme Court must parse the meaning of “public performance”
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Billions of dollars may be at stake in the final round of the legal dispute between broadcast networks and the online streaming service Aereo, but the case will come down to the interpretation of two words: public performance.
Aereo, a two-year-old startup funded by Barry Diller’s IAC, charges viewers in about a dozen U.S. markets $8 a month to record or stream live broadcast TV signals to their PCs, smartphones, and tablets using dime-size antennas. On April 22, the Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments about whether Aereo’s distribution of broadcasts infringes copyright law, which says that the rights holder controls the public performance of art—music, plays, TV shows, films.