Appeals Court Refuses To Rehear Aereo Suit

Aereo, the start-up that streams live TV to mobile devices for $8 month has won another round in court against broadcasters seeking to shut it down.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals refused the broadcasters' petition to revisit its earlier 2-1 decision that declared the service legal. The decision is a setback for Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC, which have protested Aereo's service, which transmits programming from local TV stations to customers using Apple's iPhone or Web browsers.

Fox Broadcasting said it may bring its fight to shut down Aereo to the U.S. Supreme Court after an appellate court on Tuesday said it won't rehear the case.

"The Second Circuit's denial of our request for an 'en banc' hearing, while disappointing was not unexpected," a Fox spokesman told The Los Angeles Times. "We will now review our options and determine the appropriate course of action, which may include seeking a hearing in the U.S. Supreme Court and proceeding to a full trial on the merits of the case."

The central issue in the Aereo case is whether the start-up is a private transmission under copyright law or instead, an illegal public broadcast as the broadcasters claim. Aereo claims that by providing an antenna for each subscriber they are providing a service that is legal under current law.

While Aereo did win this round in court, the broadcasters are expected to continue their legal battle, since losing the case would undermine the lucrative revenue stream of retransmission money which they currently receive from local stations that carry their programming.

The long-term legality of Aereo is still under question, particularly in the western states, where a federal judge's decision last December to shut down a similar service being offered by an Aereo competitor had the net result of making Aereo's service illegal in the entire 9th Circuit. That area includes California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii.