The battle by broadcasters to stop Aereo has now spread into Utah.
Salt Lake City FOX affiliate KSTU, CBS affiliate KUTV, MyNetworkTV affiliate KMYU and FOX Broadcasting Co. have filed suit against the streaming media company after its expansion into Salt Lake City in August.
The suit makes claims of copyright violations similar to the suits filed in New York and Boston.
“It simply does not matter whether Aereo uses one big antenna or hundreds of tiny ones to receive local broadcasts,” reads the complaint. “Nor does it matter that Aereo routes the broadcast signal through a server that copies it before retransmitting it. No amount of technological gimmickry by Aereo changes the fundamental principle of law that those who wish to retransmit copyrighted broadcasts may do so only with the copyright owners’ authority.”
Aereo is already facing legal opposition in New York and Boston. In New York, the 2nd Circuit court ruled Aereo didn’t violate copyright law.
According to Variety, Aereo spokeswoman Virginia Lam said in a statement that the “fact that Fox 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. All this meritless suit amounts to is forum shopping, and we are hopeful that any such efforts to commence duplicative lawsuits to try to seek a different outcome will be rejected by the courts.”
Deadline.com has a link to the complaint. Click here to view.