Today marks the latest step in Aereo’s massive legal battle with major broadcast networks like Fox, ABC, CBS, and NBC, with the live TV streaming/DVR service filing a declaratory judgement action against CBS, in particular. The company is asking that the court prevent CBS from suing Aereo in every district to which it expands, as CBS has twice threatened to sue Aereo in Boston, where it will launch on May 15.
But let’s start from the beginning.
After losing a preliminary injunction in the Second Circuit of New York, the major broadcast networks have been eyeing other routes to shut down the fledgling TV startup, which rents out mini-antennas to its users to watch live or recorded television from thirty OTA broadcast channels on any device.
It’s shaking up the way we think about TV, and the broadcast networks aren’t pleased.
The major court battle is still underway after the favorable ruling for Aereo with the preliminary injunction, and meanwhile Aereo continues to expand. The service is headed to Boston on May 15, and this has prompted quite the reaction from CBS.
Les Moonves, CBS CEO, said on stage last week that CBS would consider going to cable if it couldn’t shut down Aereo in the courtroom. He also threatened to continue going after them in the courts. This follows a similar threat from Fox, wherein NewsCorp went so far as to send out a press release threatening to go to cable if it didn’t get its way in court.
Drama.
And before that, a PR representative for CBS tweeted this in response to Aereo’s expansion into Boston.
@RichBTIG We will sue, and stealing our signal will be found to be illegal in Boston, just as it will be everywhere else.—
Dana McClintock (@Dana_McClintock) April 23, 2013
Here’s what Aereo’s spokesperson, Virginia Lam, had to say about it:
In response to the CBS companies’ repeated threats to sue Aereo in every market that it enters, Aereo today filed a declaratory judgment action in New York naming CBS, its Boston affiliates and its wholly owned and operated companies located in Aereo’s initial expansion markets. In 2012, CBS and other broadcasters chose to file copyright lawsuits against Aereo in the federal courts in New York. Last year, the trial court denied CBS’s and the other broadcasters’ request for a preliminary injunction against Aereo; and, last month, the appeals court affirmed that decision. The fact that CBS did not prevail in their efforts to enjoin Aereo in their existing federal lawsuit does not entitle them to a do-over in another jurisdiction. We are hopeful that any such efforts to commence duplicative lawsuits to try to seek a different outcome will be rejected by the courts.
Developing…
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/66n1gxFBKsE/
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