Rosemary Collyer.
Rosemary Collyer.
Online television streaming company Aereo suffered a defeat last week in a New York federal court, but competitor FilmOn X is pressing on with similar fights against copyright lawsuits in Washington and California.
FilmOn X LLC and Aereo Inc. offered services that retransmitted television shows online for a fee, drawing the wrath of broadcast networks. The networks filed lawsuits against Aereo in New York and against FilmOn in New York, Washington and California, arguing the services violated federal copyright law. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court found Aereo—and, by extension, FilmOn—violated the networks’ exclusive right to “publicly perform” the TV programs.
By comparing the services to cable companies, however, the Supreme Court laid the foundation for the next round of litigation. After the cases were sent back to the federal district courts, Aereo and FilmOn renewed their defenses to the networks’ claims by arguing that if they were like cable systems, they were entitled to a performance license under federal laws that applied to cable companies.
On Oct. 23, a federal judge in New York sided with the broadcast networks, finding Aereo was unlikely to succeed with its new arguments. But FilmOn is just getting started in D.C. and California. On Thursday, lawyers for FilmOn and the networks appeared before U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer in Washington, who set a schedule for filing briefs on the question of whether FilmOn should be considered a cable system. Those deadlines stretch into next spring