Law & Technology

Internet TV and Copyright Law

(or Aereo vs. the TV-Industrial Complex)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
3.371 3.S171
Lee Gesmer
Gesmer Updegrove LLP
gesmer.com, MassLawBog.com

Professor Stephen Lyons

March 13, 2015

Copyrights Six Exclusive Rights

1. Reproduce (i.e., copy)
2. Display Publicly
3.
4.
5.
6.

Prepare Derivative Works

Distribute Copies
Perform Publicly
Digital audio transmission of sound recordings

Three cases:
Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios (1984)
(the Sony or Betamax case)
Cartoon Networks v. CSC Holdings (2008)
(the Cablevision case)
American Broadcasting Co. v. Aereo (2014)
(Aereo)

Legal Background

Concept 1: The Fair Use Privilege

Acts that would otherwise be infringing are excused for
policy reasons
Common examples:

Quotations in reviews/criticism
Parodies
News reporting
Biographies, scholarly research
Small portion/reasonable purpose
m

Fair Use
Time shifting
Format shifting
Space/location shifting

Concept 2: Contributory Infringement

Conduct that intentionally induces or encourages
infringing acts by others
Examples:
Online service that encourages uploads of
copyrighted content
Online directory that encourages users to
link to copyrighted content

Contributory Infringement

However: contributory infringement

requires that first there have been a direct
infringement

Concept 3: Volition or
Who Made the Copy?
Examples:

ISP computers automatically create an

infringing copy at the direction of users/
posters = no infringement
Copy shop/course pack created by shop
employees at request of teacher =
infringement

10

Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios (1984)

(the Sony case)

11

Betamax Video Tape Recorder, circa 1980

Contributory infringement?

12

Jack Valenti, President MPAA, 1982

A VCR lobbyist has said that the VCR is the
greatest friend that the American film producer
ever had.
I say to you that the VCR is to the American film
producer and the American public as the Boston
strangler is to the woman home alone.

13

The Sony Case

First key holding:

Sony not liable for creating a device that

some customers may use for infringing
purposes, so long as the technology is capable
of substantial or commercially significant
non-infringing uses.

14

The Sony Case

Second key holding:
Private, non-commercial time-shifting of
television programs recording programs to
watch at a more convenient time is fair
use, and therefore does not infringe the
networks copyrights

15

Sony
1. A copyright owner cannot establish
contributory infringement based on a
device that has a substantial noninfringing use
2. Non-commercial, in-home timeshifting is fair use

1960s - Community Antenna

Television (CATV)

16

17

Copyright Act:
The owner of copyright under this title has the
exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the
following:
in the case of . . . motion pictures and other
audiovisual works, to perform and display the
copyrighted work publicly;

17 U.S. Code 106

18

Copyright Act:
To perform or display a work publicly means
(1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at
any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a
normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is
gathered; or
(2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or
display of the work . . . to the public, by means of any device
or process, whether the members of the public capable of
receiving the performance or display receive it in the same
place or in separate places and at the same time or at
dierent times.
17 U.S. Code 101

to perform it . . . at any place where a substantial number

of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its
social acquaintances is gathered

19

20

to perform it . . . at any place where a substantial number

of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its
social acquaintances is gathered

Jimi Hendrix performing Hey Joe at

Woodstock (copyright Billy Roberts)

21

members of the public . . . receiving the performance or

display . . . in the same place . . . and at the same time . . ..

members of the public . . . capable receiving the

performance or display . . . in separate places and at . . .
dierent times (Transmit Clause)

22

Cable
Satellite
VOD

7:00 p.m. Monday, Boston

3:00 p.m. Saturday, Portland
10:00 p.m. Tuesday, New York

23

Cartoon Networks v. CSC Holdings (2008) (the

Cablevision" case)

Cablevision Remote DVR Service

ABC/NBC/CBS

Cablevision retransmits
with permission

ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox

46

Remote DVR Server With n Subdirectories

25

Cust
1

24

Cust
25

Transmission of
personal copy

Cust
46

Cust
n

Why Did Broadcasters Care?

Impacted Nielsen ratings
Made ad-skipping easier

25

Cablevision - Public Performance Right

In determining whether a transmission is to the
public the court should consider the particular
transmission, not the underlying work.
Because each [remote DVR] playback
transmission is made to a single subscriber using a
single unique copy produced by that subscriber,
we conclude that such transmissions are not
performances to the public and therefore do not
infringe any exclusive right of public
performance

26

Cablevision - Reproduction Right

Volition - Who makes the copy?
No infringement of reproduction rights
because subscribers, not Cablevision,
controlled what TV programs to record.
Cablevision only provided the hardware
that subscribers used.

27

Cablevision - Reproduction Right

In determining who actually "makes" a
copy, a significant dierence exists
between making a request to a human
employee, who then volitionally operates
the copying system to make the copy,
and issuing a command directly to a
system, which automatically obeys
commands and engages in no volitional
conduct.

28

29

American Broadcasting Co. v. Aereo (2014)

(Aereo)

Aereo Service

30

Over-the-air
TV broadcast
Aereo records
without permission

46

Server With n Subdirectories

25

Cust
1

Cust
25

Transmission of
personal copy

Cust
46

Devices: smart phones, tablets, iTV boxes .

Cust
n

Aereo Mini-Antennas

31

32

33

Chet Kanojia, Aereo Founder

34

Barry Diller and 6+ VC investors

35

Aereo
Broadcaster law suits:
New York
Boston
Utah
District of Columbia
California

Why Do Broadcasters Care?

Retransmission fees ~ $4 billion/year

Cut the wire
Aereo business model

36

37

"the very existence of broadcast

television as we know it" is at stake.

38

Aereo
Aereo argued:

We are a rental service no dierent than

Radio Shack - we rent the antenna and
DVR, and the consumer controls the
operation. (volition)

Unique, individual antennas and copies

39

Aereo at Second Circuit (2013)

Under Cablevision Aereo does not violate
public performance right:
just as in Cablevision, the potential audience of
each Aereo transmission is the single user who
requested that a program be recorded

40

Aereo at Supreme Court (2014)

Justice Breyer:

In light of the purpose and text of the Transmit

Clause, we conclude that when an entity
communicates the same contemporaneously
perceptible images and sounds to multiple
people, it transmits a performance to them
regardless of the number of discrete
communications it makes

41

Aereo at Supreme Court (2014)

Viewed in terms of Congress' regulatory objectives,
why should any of these technological dierences
matter? They concern the behind-the-scenes way in
which Aereo delivers television programming to its
viewers' screens. . . .

42

Aereo Supreme Court Decision

An entity that transmits a performance to individuals
in their capacities as owners or possessors does not
perform to "the public," whereas an entity like Aereo
that transmits to large numbers of paying subscribers
who lack any prior relationship to the works does so
perform

43

Dissenting Justices (Scalia, Thomas, Alito)

Guilt by Resemblance The networks claim fails at the very outset because
Aereo does not perform' at all. The Court manages to
reach the opposite conclusion only by disregarding
widely accepted rules for service-provider liability and
adopting in their place an improvised standard
("looks-like-cable-TV") that will sow confusion for
years to come.

Dissent . . .
Making matters worse, the Court provides no
criteria for determining when its cable-TV-lookalike
rule applies.
It will take years, perhaps decades, to determine
which automated systems now in existence are
governed by the traditional volitional-conduct test
and which get the Aereo treatment. (And
automated systems now in contemplation will have
to take their chances.)

44

45

Aereo - Consequences?

46

Immediate Consequences

Bankruptcy late 2014

>100 jobs lost
Broadcaster stocks surged

47

Aereo - The Take Away

Where is the equip. located?

Who owns it?
Creates incentive to design products
owned by consumers and based in their
homes

48

Aereo and the Cloud - Dropbox

All your stu, anywhere

49

CW: Dropbox is dierent:

Aereo was built to stream

broadcast television without
permission

DropBox doesnt know what its

streaming

Dropbox users are already

possessors of the files they
store

First Case to Apply Aereo: Fox v. Dish

Network (C.D. Cal. 2015)
Dish Anywhere With Sling

50

51

Fox v. Dish
Aereo: its own equipment housed in a
centralized warehouse outside
consumers homes
Dish w/Sling: programming does not
originate on external servers; consumers
access their own set-top boxes

52

Fox v. Dish
User (not Dish) initiates the space
shifting; subscribers engage in the
volitional conduct necessary for direct
infringement
Subscribers space shifting does not
infringe, so Dish not liable for
contributory infringement

53

Evasion Through Automation vs. ???

Technological cat and
mouse? - Who owns the
equip., where is it
based,? Should
copyright law be
structured so that laws
can be circumventable
by clever architectural
design and technological
workarounds, as Aereo
attempted?

A more flexible
standard that would
evolve in the courts (vs.
Congress)?
vs.

E.g.: Focus on whether

the use is something in
which the copyright
owner could reasonably
expect a royalty?