Aereo is in the news over its battle with cable networks about rebroadcasting their streams without their permission. Aereo provides TV broadcast over the internet for a low monthly fee in select markets: New York City, Boston, Detroit, Miami and others. The NFL and MLB have spoken out against the service and the app, which is causing them to lose money. Aereo is legal technology that rebroadcast TV broadcast without the networks permission.
National broadcasters are not happy over this service because Aereo is suing their content without their permission and will eat away at retransmission revenue. The NFL and MLB have filed paperwork informing the Supreme Court that Aereo could push free sports broadcasts to cable networks, which would mean that Aereo could never have access to the content.
“If copyright holders lose their exclusive retransmission licensing rights and the substantial benefits derived from those rights when they place programming on broadcast stations, those stations will become less attractive mediums for distributing copyrighted content,” a petition from both leagues obtained by Variety says. This could help networks such as the NFL or MLB network where you can watch games for a monthly fee. It could also further hurt networks like CBS, NBC, and FOX who would not get to broadcast these games over their network.