Aereo Pushes 'Access' Definition of Service

Aereo has launched a YouTube video billing its online TV station signal delivery/access service as "reinvented TV antennas" that are "smart, incredibly small and remotely located."

The Supreme Court is expected to rule in the next three weeks on whether Aereo is providing remote access to those antennas everyone is entitled to have for their free TV, or whether it is providing a performance of that TV station content without paying a copyright fee paid by cable ops and others.

Aereo clearly has an opinion about which it is, one it provides in the one-minute video, which has only recently been posted and had only 10 views at press time.

The video says Aereo's antennas only turn on once a user "wakes them up" and "tunes to the show you selected." It explains that the company is changing the way TV is "accessed." Key to Aereo's court argument is that consumers are pulling the content, rather than Aereo pushing it.

Aereo also points out that its mini-antennas "live in the cloud." One of the company's arguments is that a decision against Aereo could adversely affect the future of cloud storage.

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.