Ivi is a service that lets users watch live television on the Internet. But ivi has not sought permission to do so from over-the-air broadcasters, nor has it paid retransmission fees.
Ivi believes it can do so because ivi does not change the original signal in any way. For a premium, ivi offers DVR “time sifting” features such as pause, rewind, and fast forward, though.
Ivi currently streams programs from New York and Seattle affiliates of ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and a few other networks.
Broadcasters and copyright owners (including the major networks and Major League Baseball) have filed a lawsuit against ivi in New York federal court on September 28, as you might have expected.
Ivi has pegged its legal hopes on the “passive carrier exemption.”
The exemption makes it lawful to retransmit a transmission intended for the public so long as the retransmitter lacks control over the content of the original transmission or over the recipients of the retransmission.
Ivi believes that by retransmitting freely-available, over-the-air broadcasts and offering basic DVR-like services, it is nothing more than a passive carrier and exempt from copyright liability.
An unfavorable ruling will kill ivi; a favorable ruling would add just a bit more pressure on the rest of the video ecosystem. But most of the best programming these days is "cable only," and in a different legal and regulatory category.
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