Video Wars II: The "Nuclear Option"

Norman Leventhal is a Partner in our Washington D.C. office

In our January 18  blog, we reported on the continued court battle between two major industries concerning the rights of the on-line community to retransmit broadcast network programs without paying for them.  The judicial face-off continues over its legality in courtrooms on both coasts with the newest battle lines taking the form of threats to remove network programs from over-the-air television altogether.

To refresh the reader, when Barry Diller's Aereo service began operations in New York City, subscribers were to be charged $12 per month to receive Internet transmission of network programs broadcast to thousands of micro-antennas located at Aereo facilities in NYC -- the same broadcasts that went to thousands of home antennas as well as the master antennas of all of the cable systems serving the region.  In Aereo, each subscriber downloads an app which assigns a single antenna to that subscriber