Media Coverage
Source: Associated Press
Media Coverage
02.17.12
Pillsbury Communications partner Scott Flick made a splash in the media by talking about a new startup service, Aereo, launched last week, which sends live local TV broadcasts for viewing on iPhones and iPads. An Associated Press story quoting him hit dozens of top-tier media, with pick-ups in publications such as USAToday.com, WSJ.com, WashingtonPost.com and NPR.org, following his appearance in a separate AdWeek.com article exploring Aereo's business model.
Noting the far-reaching laws governing retransmission of TV signals, Flick told The Associated Press that Aereo is walking on dangerous ground, legally speaking.
"When you take somebody's programming and you make it available on some device that wouldn't normally receive that, that sounds a lot like retransmission," which means that Aereo should be paying the TV stations, he said.
"The laws here are fairly tight. There's not a lot of room for wiggle." "The one-antenna-per-subscriber setup doesn't look like much of a loophole," Flick says, since courts ruling on retransmission cases have "a fundamental history of saying over the years: 'Look, if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's a duck.'"