Aereo Wins Appeals Verdict (No Fooling!)

April Fool’s Day turned out to be pretty good for Aereo Inc., Barry Diller’s antenna-based venture to retransmit broadcast signals in New York City. Two judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, after hearing pleas last November from the likes of ABC, NBCUniversal and others to have the startup turn its nascent service off until all pending content disputes have been settled, sided with U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan and her decision last summer to let the service commence.  “We conclude that Aereo’s transmissions of unique copies of broadcast television programs created at its users’ requests and transmitted while the programs are still airing on broadcast television are not “public performances” of the Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works under Cablevision,” the two assenting justices wrote, adding that the plaintiffs hadn’t presented compelling copyright-infringement testimony. One U.S. District Court judge assigned to the panel dissented.