There has been an ongoing debate in the US about the re-transmission of free-to-air (FTA) content by companies that have wanted to offer new services, the most famous being Aereo which eventually failed and went into Chapter 11 in November 2014 (Aereo Files for Chapter 11) and was bought by TiVO in March 2015 (TiVo Looks to Failed Aereo for Inspiration).
In a judgement that surprised a number of industry participants last week, a US judge ruled that FilmOn X LLC, which is trying to develop a TV streaming business, should have the same rights as a cable broadcaster. This means that the firm can claim a compulsory licence under the US copyright act to retransmit content as long as it meets its obligations. To soften the effect of the judgement, the court did not overturn a previous injunction against FilmOn, pending an appeal to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals.
Analyst Comment
As I understand it, the argument from FilmOn looks like the same one that eventually killed Aereo when it lost the argument. Aereo changed its legal arguments during its battle with the networks, and eventually argued that it should have the same rights as a cable broadcaster. However, the networks want to be able to develop their own streaming services.
In the background, the US FCC is currently looking at changing the status of some streaming services to multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) which has a particular legal status in the US broadcasting regulatory environment, so there is much manoeuvring going on in the US at the moment. If streamers are classified in this way, they will have the same rights and obligations as traditional Pay TV providers in the US. (BR)
