Professors: Aereo Is Healthy Response to Dysfunctional System

Aereo definitely has friends in a trio of law professors who weighed in on its side with the Supreme Court.

Filing the brief were Warren Grimes is a professor of law at Southwestern Law School and co-author of The Law of Antitrust: An Integrated Handbook; Shubha Ghosh, law professor at University of Wisconsin Law School and cofounder of the American Antitrust Institute; and Joshua P. Davis, associate dean for academic affairs, professor and director, Center for Law and Ethics at the University of San Francisco School of Law.

In their amicus brief, the professors called Aereo a "healthy free-market response to a dysfunctional and anticompetitive television distribution system that raises prices, reduces output, and denies consumers meaningful choice." They say broadcasters have a responsibility to support the wide dissemination by Aereo of their free TV signals, a responsibility given their spectrum grants that trumps the pursuit of copyright payments. They point out that broadcasters have two limited government monopolies, access to free spectrum -- free except for the public interest standard--and certain exclusive copyright protections of a "fair return" for their creative investment in local programming.

But the academics argue broadcasters undermine their public interest obligation to free, over-the-air TV by invoking copyright law. They say Aereo simplifies access to those over-the-air signals, signals that already ensure a fair return to broadcasters through ad revenue. Granting broadcasters the relief from Aereo they seek would "decrease the output of local television broadcasting and leave consumers with very limited, technologically deficient and expensive choices for obtaining local programming," they say.