American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. v. Aereo, Inc.

After losing this case, Aereo filed for bankruptcy. Prior to the case, reviews of Aereo's service were generally positive.

Aereo's technology was laughably inefficient -- it actually allotted a separate antenna for each active customer and separate hard drive space even if dozens of customers wanted to watch or record the same program. They did this because they believed they would be complying with copyright law by doing so. Even though broadcast TV stations are sent over the airwaves for free, major networks charge a carriage fee to cable networks and were unhappy to lose this fee to cable customers switching to Aereo. Additionally, many major cable carriers are owned by the same companies as major broadcast networks, which causes otherwise-inexplicable market behavior. For example, CBS offers direct streaming anywhere for $5.99/month, whereas NBC (owned by Comcast) offers free streaming but only for cable subscribers.