The US Supreme Court will soon be deciding the fate of an Indian-American technocrat’s start-up that has triggered panic across the whole phalanx of American broadcasting corporations.
At issue is the fledgling company’s right to stream online the content of major television networks by deploying arrays of miniature antennas to simply capture broadcast signals. Television giants including ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox are calling it plain theft on the part of tech entrepreneur Chaitanya ‘Chet’ Kanojia’s Aereo Inc. by offering live TV over the Internet “public performances” of their shows in gross violation of copyright laws.
Kanojia calls Aereo a groundbreaking online TV platform that has developed proprietary cloud-based antenna and DVR technology, allowing consumers to watch live or recorded HD broadcast television on virtually any type of Internet-connected device, including smart TVs, smartphones, tablets and computers – all for a nominal fee of $8 a month.
The Supreme Court justices, who heard oral arguments in the case on Tuesday, sounded skeptical about Kanojia’s venture. At the same time, they wondered if a ruling against the start-up could have a far-reaching effect on cloud computing services.
“Your technological model is based solely on circumventing legal prohibitions that you don’t want to comply with,” Chief Justice John Roberts told Aereo’s lawyer. But his colleague, Justice Stephen Breyer, commented: “What disturbs me on the other side is I don’t understand what the decision for you or against you when I write it is going to do to all kinds of other technologies.”
Given the divergent views and concerns advanced by these two and other justices, it remains to be seen which way the pronouncement goes. The court’s decision is expected by the end of June.
“The court seems torn about what to do,” Bruce Ewing, a partner with the Dorsey & Whitney law firm, told The Washington Post. He spoke of the justices’ apparent concern about a ripple effect that any decision by them could have on a whole range of Web-based services.
The 43-year-old Kanojia, who holds a master’s degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Northeastern University and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the National Institute of Technology in Bhopal, has more than 14 patents under his belt. These are in fields ranging from robotics to data communications systems.