Federal Court Rejects Aereo’s Plea to Operate as Cable System

By Merrill Knox 

aereoA federal court has rejected Aereo’s appeal to continue operating as a cable company, The Washington Post reports:

If the shuttered streaming video company wants to keep fighting for its survival, procedural reasons require that it do so at the district court level, officials said in a document filed Thursday.

The decision is a win for broadcasters, who had sought a ban on Aereo from the beginning. Initially, the district court decided against an injunction. But a ruling from the Supreme Court earlier this summer reversed that decision. Now the appellate court, following procedure, has also followed suit. Aereo declined to comment; a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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How significant is this move? Seeing as Aereo had already voluntarily shut its doors after the Supreme Court verdict, a preliminary injunction doesn’t mean much for the company operationally. But the Second Circuit is effectively telling Aereo that if it wants to argue that it’s a cable company only for the purposes of copyright law — and therefore qualified to pay lower royalties — it’s currently making the argument to the wrong people.

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