Cablevision Says Government, Nonprofit Could Retransmit World Series Online

Cablevision has put out a general call to a "government entity" or "non-profit organization" to retransmit Fox's coverage of the World Series over the Internet.

In its latest appeal to government to help in its retransmission consent battle with Fox, Cablevision issued a release saying there was an exemption in the Copyright Act giving those entities the right to do so so long as it was not for "any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage" and "without charge to the recipients of the secondary transmission other than assessments necessary to defray the actual and reasonable costs of maintaining and operating the secondary transmission service." Cablevision said those entities were also excluded by statute from the FCC's retransmission consent regime. "Under the clear language of this statutory exemption, a governmental entity or non-profit entity could, for the purpose of serving the public interest, retransmit the World Series free over the Internet. With a simple antenna and Internet streaming capacity, a governmental entity or non-profit organization could do a tremendous public service and extend the reach of this broadcast programming - just as Congress intended," said Cablevision.