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Rebroadcasting TV Online for Profit Is Illegal, Says Judge

by Terrence O'Brien on February 22, 2011 at 12:45 PM

ivi TV Service
The Internet streaming video service ivi just received a vicious rebuke from U.S. District Court Judge Naomi Buchwald of the Southern District of New York. Since its inception, the service has offered live TV streams from major broadcasters like Fox, NBC and PBS by simply snatching broadcasts out of the air and retransmitting them over the Web to paying customers. The problem is that the company made no agreement with the TV stations. As a result, the content providers banded together to file suit against the company. In its own defense, ivi defended claimed that it had operated within the law because it had paid $100 a year to the Copyright Office for a compulsory license, a relic of the 1970s that allowed young cable companies to retransmit broadcast television stations. But the judge ruled that ivi did not qualify for a Section 111 compulsory license, because the company was not a cable operator and offered the broadcasts nationally instead of to specific regions.

The judge ordered an immediate injunction against ivi to stop the retransmissions. Chances are, those who pay the $4.99 or $5.99 for a subscription will never get the service back. When it launched back in September, ivi was clearly on shaky legal ground, and many of us expected the service would be shut down rather quickly. We're kind of shocked it lasted even this long.

Tags: copyright, ivi, law, media, StreamingVideo, top, web

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