Aereo Files Countersuit Against Broadcasters, Plans to Launch Tomorrow

By Karla Robinson
March 13, 2012

After prominent broadcasters including ABC, CBS and NBCUniversal filed lawsuits against Aereo regarding its online television service, the company is fighting back with a countersuit.
The New York-based company, backed by Barry Diller, believes its plan to retransmit broadcast signals is not illegal and notes that the broadcasters did not send Aereo any formal notice inhibiting the service’s March 14th launch.
“Consumers use the Aereo technology to do no more than what they are entitled to do: access local television broadcasts on the public airwaves using an individual antenna; create unique copies of that broadcast content for their own personal use; and play back their unique recordings to their televisions or other viewing devices for their personal use,” the company stated in the filing.
According to Reuters, Aereo “advertises itself as a ‘potentially transformative’ service that would complement Google Inc’s YouTube, Netflix Inc and other services that let viewers watch programming online… Broadcasters, however, counter that Aereo’s planned ‘antenna farms’ deprive them of their right to retransmission fees from cable and other companies that rebroadcast their programs.”

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