The streaming video provider wants to block CBS — and, presumably, other broadcasters — from making good on a threat to file suits across the country to address the same issue: whether Aereo violates their copyrights. That’s already being debated at the U.S. District Court in New York, Aereo’s only current market. But CBS chief Les Moonves said last week that as Aereo expands — including in Boston this month — “we’ll sue them again” in different jurisdictions. Aereo asked the New York court this morning for a declaratory judgment that would try to establish it as the sole locale for the legal battle.
TV broadcasters are asking a federal appellate court to order online video service Aereokiller to remain shuttered. “Aereokiller represents the latest in a long line of services that, utilizing various technologies, have sought to retransmit over-the-air broadcasts of television programming without licenses to do so,” a group of networks argues in papers filed late last week with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit claiming that YouTube is legally liable for hosting copyright-infringing work was dealt a death blow Thursday, when a judge issued a summary judgment in favor of the online video portal. “The burden of showing that YouTube knew or was aware of the specific infringements of the works in suit cannot be shifted to YouTube to disprove,” U.S District Judge Louis Stanton said in his ruling from New York.
A federal appeals court in New York today turned down a request by broadcasters for an injunction against Aereo, the Internet service that streams broadcast TV stations without compensation. In a 2-to-1 ruling, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that Aereo’s streams of TV shows to individual subscribers did not constitute “public performances,” and thus the broadcasters’ copyright infringement lawsuits against the service “are not likely to prevail on the merits.”
Exclusives
Lawyers for Aereo went to court this week seeking sensitive documents from Big Media ranging from carriage deals to NBCUniversal Olympic research to contracts with Netflix. The hearing came as Aereo preps its defense for a likely trial, where broadcast entities have charged it with copyright infringement, leading to irreparable harm. A trial will deal with intricacies of copyright law, but Aereo will also seek to counter arguments that its service hurts networks sizably in their quest to collect retransmission consent payments, advertising dollars and licensing fees from subscription video-on-demand providers.
The Consumer Electronics Association along with the Computer and Communications Industry Association and the Internet Association tells a federal court that the Dish Hopper service that allows consumers to record and zap ads in all network broadcasting does not violate copyright law. Broadcasters have sued Dish, claiming copyright violations and breach of distribution contracts.
Aereo’s search marketing tactics could prove that the company infringes copyright, the TV networks argue in recent court papers. A coalition of networks that’s suing Aereo for copyright infringement says in court papers that it needs to examine records from Google about Aereo’s AdWords campaigns.
Ivi Inc. lost its bid to overturn a court-ordered shutdown of its business of capturing over-the-air television signals and transmitting them to online subscribers. A lower-court judge was correct in granting TV broadcasters such as CBS Corp. a preliminary order last year that put Ivi out of business, a panel of federal appeals judges ruled today in New York.
The networks’ joint copyright infringement claim against digital entrepreneur Alki David’s provocative site is similar to the suit that Fox filed on Friday — also at the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The action against BarryDriller Content Systems was made “to restrain defendants from exploiting without authorization, and violating plaintiffs’ rights in, some of the most valuable intellectual property created in the United States,” the networks say.
The network moved ahead with its lawsuit against ABC this week by amending its filing that alleges ABC copied elements of Big Brother for its new reality TV competition series The Glass House.
The networks will get $1.6 million from Alki David, one of their big legal adversaries. Yet David plans to go forward anyway with plans to add networks to his online TV service.
Some of the changes Dish has made to its Auto Hop seem designed to potentially defuse some of the legal ssues the broadcast networks are fighting, at least in the eyes of the court. Now when Dish asks subscribers to enable the Auto Hop feature on its DVR and allow it to skip commercials, the “no” box is checked by default instead of the “yes” box..
Dish Network is demanding a New York jury trial in its dispute with ABC over the satellite provider’s ad-skipping Auto Hop feature. In a filing Tuesday, Dish also denied several claims by ABC that it had violated its copyrights by creating, in essence, an “unauthorized, commercial-free, on-demand service.”
Satellite broadcaster Dish Network lost the preliminary legal bout with broadcast networks CBS, NBC and Fox over its commercial skipping feature known as the Auto Hop. A New York federal court Monday denied Dish’s request for a declaratory ruling that the Auto Hop does not violate copyright law.
Judge Laura Taylor Swain in Manhattan said Monday that she will make a decision within a week on Dish network’s request to move the case brought by CBS, Fox and NBC against the satellite provider’s ad-skipping technology from New York to Los Angeles.
The three broadcast networks will face Dish in court starting today over its commercial-skipping feature Auto Hop, which works on TV network programs recorded on DVRs.
U.S. District Judge Gary Feess has refused CBS’s request to block ABC’s new Glass House, which premiered Monday, and detailed his reasons in a 16-page ruling released Friday. CBS says it will continue to pursue the case and is seeking additional evidence from ABC and Glass House producers.
CBS Restraining Order Against ABC Denied
ABC scored a victory — at least for now — in the lawsuit over its upcoming reality series Glass House. U.S. District Judge Gary Feess on Friday morning temporarily denied CBS’s request for a temporary restraining order against the series, which is scheduled to premiere Jan. 18.
Attorneys for ABC and CBS will appear this morning before U.S. District Judge Gary Feess to argue whetherABC’s new The Glass House should premiere as planned on Monday night, or be bumped from the schedule over copyright and trade secret concerns.
U.S. District Judge Gary Feess scheduled arguments for Friday morning, just days before ABC’s Glass House is scheduled to premiere on Monday night. CBS wants the show knocked from airwaves because it claims the new series violates its Big Brother copyrights.
On Tuesday, CBS submitted a new court filing that portrays its legal adversary of being short on the merits and inconsistent in making the case that Glass House isn’t a copycat of CBS’s long-running hit Big Brother.
“Even CBS must realize it cannot copyright the idea of 14 contestants living in a house rigged with cameras,” the ABC court papers argue.
A federal appeals court on Wednesday reversed a lower court’s decision to throw out a $1 billion lawsuit that was filed against YouTube by Viacom and other media companies five years ago.
