On June 25, 2014, the US Supreme Court reversed a decision of
the Second Circuit and held that Aereo publicly performs
copyrighted television programming.1 The case has important
implications for the public performance right under the Copyright
Act and for new technologies and online services that make
copyright-protected content available to the public.
The Aereo Service
Aereo is an online service that gives its subscribers the
ability to view broadcast television programs on a variety of
internet-connected devices like smartphones and tablets.
Aereo's system consists of thousands of individual antennas
connected to a remote server. Each subscriber is assigned an
antenna, and no two users share the same antenna, even when
watching the same program. Rather than transmit the feed directly
to the user, Aereo creates a unique copy for each user of the
desired program on its remote server. Then, depending on whether
the user chooses "watch" or "record,"
