Second Circuit Affirms Streaming Broadcast TV Not Copyright Infringement

WNET, Thirteen v. Aereo, Inc.
By Natalie Kim – Edited by Samantha Rothberg

Last Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the Southern District of New York’s July 2012 denial of a preliminary injunction motion filed against Aereo by several broadcast TV networks.

On Wednesday the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted HathiTrust’s motion for summary judgment on the copyright infringement claims, dismissing the claims brought by the Authors Guild. The HathiTrust Digital Library (“HDL”) is a massive, Google-affiliated book-digitization project led by academic institutions such as the University of California and Indiana University; it had scanned and placed books in the HDL without consulting rights holders.