Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Aereo Case

The Supreme Court seemed to have conflicting impulses in considering a request from television broadcasters to shut down Aereo, an Internet start-up that the broadcasters say threatens the economic viability of their businesses.

On the one hand, most of the Justices seemed to think that the service was too clever by half. “Your technological model,” Chief Justice John Roberts Jr told Aereo’s lawyer, “is based solely on circumventing legal prohibitions that you don’t want to comply with.”

But Justice Stephen Breyer, echoing sentiments of other members of the court, said “what disturbs me on the other side is, I don’t understand what a decision” against Aereo “should mean for other technologies,” notably cloud computing.

The Justices seemed keenly aware that their ruling would have vast implications for the broadcast industry and for technical innovations involving cloud computing.