NFL, MLB Warn That Aereo Could Trigger End of Free Broadcasts

[Dr. Cornelius]

http://variety.com/2013/tv/news/nfl-major-league-baseball-warn-supreme-court-that-aereo-could-trigger-end-to-games-on-free-tv-1200847089/

 

 

The National Football League and Major League Baseball are urging the Supreme Court to grant broadcasters’ petition to hear their challenge to the legality of Aereo, the startup that features unauthorized streams of local broadcast signals.

 

After the TV networks filed a petition to the high court last month, the NFL and MLB filed an amicus brief last week arguing that if Aereo prevails, it would mean sports programming would likely migrate to cable. Broadcasters argue that Aereo undermines their ability to collect retransmission fees from cable and satellite operators.

 

“If copyright holders lose their exclusive retransmission licensing rights and the substantial benefits derived from those rights when they place programming on broadcast stations, those stations will become less attractive mediums for distributing copyrighted content,” the leagues said in their brief. “The option for copyright holders will be to move that content to paid cable networks (such as ESPN and TNT) where Aereo-like services cannot hijack and exploit their programming without authorization.

 

Big mistake. That is NHL lockout level stupid.