Source: CNN Money
A two-year-long legal battle between the country’s biggest broadcasters and a startup called Aereo is about to culminate at the U.S. Supreme Court.
The court’s decision, expected sometime this summer, could have far-reaching implications for television and technology companies — and ultimately on how people watch TV programs.
That’s because Aereo brings up crucial questions about copyright law and threatens to disrupt lucrative business models.
The court will hear arguments in the case on Tuesday morning. Legal experts are divided about the most likely outcome. But Aereo is undeniably the underdog, opposed by the owners of virtually all the major media companies in the United States.
“We believe that Aereo’s business model, and similar offerings that operate on the same principle, are built on stealing the creative content of others,” CBS (CBS, Fortune 500)said in a statement, echoing the views of others challenging Aereo.
Related: What the heck is Aereo, anyway?
What Aereo says: The startup argues that it’s service is legal: It simply mimics what millions of Americans already do at home — hook their television sets up to antennas and watch free TV.
The service scoops up the freely available signals of TV stations using arrays of tiny antennas — thousands of them, in fact, so that every viewer gets an individual antenna. Then it streams the signals to the phones and tablets of paying subscribers, turning those devices into TV sets without the need for a physical antenna.
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