Media Institute: Aereo Is Illegal Contrivance Masquerading As Disruptive Innovation

The Media Institute has filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court backing broadcasters in their fight with Aereo. The First Amendment think tank, which is backed by major media companies, recruited Duke University Law visiting professor and institute advisor Rodney Smolla to make the argument that Aereo is simply using a technological contrivance"-- banks of remote off-air antennas and servers for recording programming -- that serves no purpose other than to provide legal cover so that Aereo can "traffic in copyrighted content without paying for it." "If a picture tells a thousand words, a thousand antennas tell the picture," the brief says, "Aereo's bizarre engineering, employing thousands of antennas to do the work of one, reveals to all what is really going on." Smolla also argues that the Aereo model threatens to undercut broadcasters business models, and not through the disruptive innovation that is a threat to any settled business model, but by illegal activity in the guise of that innovation.