Some pending court cases involving cable companies and online video...
Some pending court cases involving cable companies and online video distributors (OVD) could affect whether policymakers decide to rewrite the Copyright Act or reconsider how multichannel video programming distributors are defined, said Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet…
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Coalition. In a copyright infringement case brought by broadcasters against Aereo, Aereo argued that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision allowing Cablevision’s DVR service applies to Aereo, too (CD Oct 23 p5). Aereo thought it could take the Cablevision precedent and apply it to Internet TV, Erickson said Monday during a webcast of a Practising Law Institute panel in New York. A judge ruled that Cablevision is the governing law in the 2nd Circuit decision and Aereo is within the law, Erickson said. Broadcasters appealed, claiming Aereo “is gaming the Copyright Act” to get around the rules, he said. “The problem is that it’s difficult to distinguish Aereo from a cable service.” The case against Dish Network’s AutoHop ad-skipping feature in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also conjures up the Cablevision precedent, Erickson said. “If you look at the facts, it fits within Cablevision’s four squares.” Technology is at a warp pace, said Christopher Guttman-McCabe, CTIA vice president. It bypasses the regulations and the legislation, he said. “Whether it’s the fairly recently written copyright law or regulations that cable companies operate under, the world has changed so much in the last five years … these are just a few of the cases that we're going to see.” The panelists agreed that policymakers should decide whether to address whether entities should choose the type of regulations to operate under. For OVDs, “I don’t think we think we'll get to a place where we can choose to opt in” to be regulated like an MVPD, Erickson said. “Even if there is a choice created, there’s no way we think we're going to have a statute that allows us to take the benefits.” The issue doesn’t interfere with business decisions at Viacom, said Keith Murphy, senior vice president of government relations. “We ask for fairness and a level playing field, so on electing a status, I think the best result is one where like services are regulated the same.” Rick Chessen, NCTA senior vice president, said he supports a light-touch approach from the FCC. Just because a service may not be an MVPD, “that doesn’t mean there isn’t a competitive impact on those that are,” he said. “I think the FCC has got it right in taking a hands-off, light touch approach to what’s going on out there.”