Media Institute Asks High Court to Hear Broadcasters Aereo Appeal

The Media Institute filed an amicus brief Nov. 12 asking the Supreme Court to hear broadcasters' appeal of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals' refusal to block Aereo while a trial court determines if the TV station online distributor is violating copyright laws.

"If a picture tells a thousand words, a thousand antennas tell the picture," the brief states. "Aereo's bizarre engineering, employing thousands of antennas to do the work of one, reveals to all what is really going on."  Aereo's practices amount to "manipulative technological exploitation," the brief says.

The institute argues that Aereo both violates copyright and poses "a massive threat to the settled economic and legal arrangements that undergird the broadcast industry."

Amicus briefs in the appeal were due Nov. 12.

The Institute is a D.C.-based First Amendment think tank supported by various media companies.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.