With the Supreme Court's Aereo decision
finally out, the digital industry is struggling with its impact, if
any, on various products and services, particularly with regard to
cloud computing. However, the Supreme Court narrowly tailored the
Aereo decision to services that closely resemble
cable TV. Thus, suggestions that "the sky is falling" for
cloud computing or other services that might re-transmit
copyrighted content may be premature.
In American Broadcasting Cos., Inc. v. Aereo,
Inc., 573 U. S. __ (2014), the Supreme Court held that
Aereo infringed broadcasters' copyrights by providing customers
access to public TV programming over the Internet via
individualized antennas owned and operated by Aereo. Aereo's
business is built around two products: mini-antennas assigned to
each customer and stored at Aereo's warehouses, and a digital
video recorder with a large storage capacity on Aereo's
servers, which acts as a private cloud service. At a user's
request, Aereo
