Power Lawyers: How Aereo's Attorneys Beat Hollywood

When Barry Diller unveiled Aereo in February 2012, he said the startup allowing consumers to watch network television on digital devices would break the chains of a “closed cable-broadcast-satellite circle.” Not surprisingly, all of the major TV networks immediately sued. So Aereo turned to R. David Hosp and Michael Elkin to defend the company in court.

Hosp was picked because five years earlier, he persuaded an appeals court to overturn an injunction issued by Judge Denny Chin that had stopped Cablevision’s remote-storage DVR. Diller and Aereo’s leaders knew that the Cablevision ruling raised issues similar to those represented by Aereo and thus would be their best hope of beating the broadcasters. But Aereo’s success was less than assured. Even though the company prevailed at an initial stage by getting a judge to deny the broadcasters’ injunction request, when the case was appealed to the Second Circuit Court of appeals in New York, Aereo’s lawyers received unwelcome news.