“The victory Aereo won in a New York federal court Wednesday is only temporary, but it threatens to undermine the delicate contractual structure of American television in a way that could give Apple a boost,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.
“Aereo is a start-up funded by ex-Fox CEO Barry Diller’s IAC that streams the local broadcast signals of TV stations via the Web to iPhones and iPads for a $12 monthly fee,” P.E.D. reports. “Even before it began operations, Aereo was sued by a small army of big content providers, including CBS, NBC Universal, Disney, News Corp. and WNET. Claiming they would suffer ‘irreparable harm,’ if Aereo were allowed to sell their copyrighted material without sharing the revenue, the content providers sought a temporary injunction that would have shut Aereo down.”
P.E.D. reports, “On Wednesday, Judge Alison Nathan denied the injunction. The case now goes to trial, which could take some time… In the long run — assuming a jury finds in Aereo’s favor — it could reboot the negotiations with content providers that Steve Jobs started but was unable to complete before his death. Jobs’ dream for Apple TV was to provide, for a monthly fee, the best of television without the rest of the 500 channels that most viewers never watch.”
Read more in the full article – recommended here.