amicus brief

Major League Baseball and the National Football League are arguing in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court that Aereo's steaming service of free broadcast TV could drive sports television away from free broadcast TV onto platforms that consumers have to pay for, Broadcasting & Cable reports.

"'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. The option for copyright holders will be to move that content to paid cable networks (such as ESPN and TNT) where Aereo-like services cannot hijack and exploit their programming without authorization,'" the sports leagues argued according to B&C.

Broadcasters argue that Aereo's service violates their copyrights in their programming.