Graphics for a Historic Copyright Case

As you prepare for oral argument in an important hearing, you may realize that you need quick help to create or revise graphics. Today’s blog post comes from this type of scenario, and it has the added interest of coming from a high-profile copyright dispute pending in the Supreme Court.

Cogent Legal recently helped counsel for Aereo prepare for a hearing to oppose a motion for preliminary injunction. You have probably heard of Aereo—Aereo provides a service allowing users to view broadcast television over the internet without a cable subscription. The broadcast and cable companies claim that Aereo violates copyright law, and on April 22, the Supreme Court heard arguments about Aereo’s service in the case American Broadcasting Company v. Aereo.

Aereo designed its service to comply with the “fair use” provisions of copyright law as set out in the historic Sony case which allowed personal video cassette recorders as fair use. In one of our graphics, we emphasized this similarity, recalling the look of the VCR and rabbit ears at the time of the 1984 Sony decision:

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