AMERICAN BROADCASTING COMPANIES, INC., et al., Petitioners v. AEREO, INC., fka BAMBOOM LABS, INC., 573 U.S. 431

Summary

Petitioners claimed that respondent violated their rights under the Copyright Act by selling a service that allowed subscribers to watch television programs over the Internet at about the same time the programs were broadcast over the air. A divided panel of the Second Circuit found that respondent did not perform "publicly" within the meaning of the Transmit Clause of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C.S. § 101, because it used technology which allowed it to stream programs to each subscriber by sending a private transmission that was available only to that subscriber. The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed. Changes Congress made to the Copyright Act in 1976 were intended to overturn the Supreme Court's decisions in Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television, Inc. and Teleprompter Corp. v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., and under those changes respondent performed petitioners' copyrighted works publicly when it streamed the works to subscribers.