The Supreme Court’s recent majority decision in American Broadcasting
Companies v. Aereo, Inc. 134 S.Ct. 2498 (2014) holds that a service
allowing consumers to watch broadcast television programs over the Internet
virtually simultaneously with the original over the air broadcast directly
infringes the copyright owners the exclusive rights to “perform the
copyrighted work publicly.” The majority overrules the Second Circuit
ruling in the same case, and throws into doubt one of the central holdings
in the Second Circuit’s Cablevision decision.