The Supreme Court is expected to rule later this week or next week on whether Aereo — the start-up service that streams local TV signals on the Internet via remote antennas — is legal or violates copyright law. While broadcasters like CBS, Fox, ABC and NBC are hopeful that SCOTUS will side with them, if it doesn’t, they won’t be throwing in the towel. Fox and CBS have threatened in the past that they might switch their broadcast networks to cable channels. But more likely to happen if Aereo prevails in court is that the broadcasters will seek other legal or regulatory roadblocks.
One approach, notes an LA Times analysis, may be to try to force Aereo to comply with the same rules that require cable and satellite operators to have to negotiate with local TV stations in order to carry their signals:
“Currently, over-the-top providers are not regulated as MVPDs. That means they are immune from certain FCC regulations including retransmission consent, which gives local broadcasters the ability to charge a distributor a fee for carrying their signals.
The key difference between an over-the-top service and a traditional MVPD is that the former uses the public Internet to distribute content while the latter uses facilities they own or control.
In 2012, the FCC said it was looking into whether it needed to change what defines an MVPD. However, that proceeding has been idle since then.
The industry is divided about whether OTTs should be regulated as traditional MVPDs. Some distributors, including DirecTV, told the FCC that if an OTT is going to compete with MVPDs, they should be regulated the same way.
The FCC should “establish a level playing field where competitors operate under a core set of common rights, protections and obligations,” DirecTV said.
But others, including NBC parent Comcast, said OTTs should not be viewed as MVPDs. Its rationale was that it is a growing platform that should not be burdened by the regulatory commitments that traditional cable and satellite operators are required to fulfill.
Aereo, which has argued all along that it is an antenna service and not a video distribution platform or subscription TV provider, probably would try to make those same arguments to the FCC.”
David Oxenford, Partner, Wilkinson, Barker, Knauer, LLP, tells RBR-TVBR: “The FCC already has an open proceeding to decide whether companies that provide video over the Internet should be regulated like cable and other multichannel video programming distributors. It was started when a video provider wanted access to cable programming, but could also look at the issue of whether a system like Aereo would be subject to cable-like regulation.”
See the article he wrote on the subject:
