Alki Davids FilmOn Is Suing Barry Dillers Aereo
Barry Diller.
The Shakespearean legal war over digital television has taken another step towards the preternatural.
Alki Davids FilmOn has filed a new lawsuit in California federal court against Aereo, the upstart company funded in large part byBarry Diller.
Both companies capture the signals of TV broadcasters like CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox and deliver them to subscribers online. Both enterprises have been defending lawsuits against those same broadcasters. Naturally, theres a rivalry between the would-be digital TV titans, which has born some odd triangular litigation.
On Thursday, FilmOn claimed rights to Aero, and that Aereo has taken a moniker thats confusingly similar. The new lawsuit comes six months after David was sued after attempting toredubhis own service asBarryDriller.com and AereoKiller.
The basis for the lawsuit filed on Thursday comes from the allegation that months before Bamboon Labs changed its name to Aereo, FilmOn already had a hold on Aero.
Specifically, Davids company says that it had been distributing a portable mini-television antenna product for Windows equipped computers called WinTV-Aero-m. The product was manufactured by Hauppauge Computer Works, which consented to FilmOns use of Aero. The complaint adds that on Wednesday -- a day before the lawsuit was filed -- Hauppauge assigned in writing to FilmOn the rights to the trademark Aero.
Seeking to unfairly capitalize on the success of WinTV-Aero-m and the name Aero, Defendant Aereo devised a scheme to start a competing business, says the lawsuit alleging false designation of origin under the Lanham Act.
Read the full complaint here.
The lawsuit represents a specialty of theeccentric Alki David-- revenge litigation. After he was sued by the broadcasters, for instance, he turned around andfiled a lawsuit against CBSfor facilitating piracy.
Davids latest legal jab follows the same pattern. In August,Barry Diller sued over BarryDriller.comand AereoKiller, alleging that his own name was being exploited and that FilmOn was unfairly attempting to associate its services with Dillers.
The irony is that while both of these companies sue each other, they have things in common beyond any name-calling.
The major networks believe that both Aereo and FilmOn commit massive infringement by violating the transmit clause of the U.S. Copyright Act.
Aereo has been more lucky on this front,defeating a requested injunctionas the dispute isnow under appeal.
As for FilmOn, a California judge recently agreed to grant broadcasters motion for a preliminary injunction, although it was with the caveat that it applied only within the geographical boundaries of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit -- meaning much of the Northwest. Also on Thursday, the ruling was appealed.
As FilmOn fights for its survival in the Ninth Circuit and Aereo fights in the Second Circuit -- and battle each other in the midst -- the possibility exists for split rulings, whichcould set up a Supreme Court showdownover the future of TV streaming.
For now, David says that despite the recent injunction ruling, his service is doing well, offering the major TV networks in seven major cities in the U.S. And if all that hasnt sufficiently reached the heights of 21st century legal bizarre, David has also announced that his own TV stations have recently reached a distribution deal with Dish Network, the same satellite TV company that is also in the midst of a copyright war with broadcasters.
Personally I blame the lawyers, he says. If it were not for their insatiable desire to create billable controversy we would not be in the situation where I have to spend my time and resources to punish them.
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Alki Davids FilmOn Is Suing Barry Dillers Aereo 
