IAC Chairman Barry Diller on Tuesday defended startup Aereo, denying that the service is illegally re-selling content.
Aereo, a company in which Diller has invested, is "not re-selling anything," he said during an appearance before the Senate Commerce Committee. "What we have is a technological platform."
Aereo manufactures tiny HDTV antennas and then stores the content they capture on remote servers for a $12 monthly fee. It serves a single market - New York City - and provides access to NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, the CW, plus 20 or so other local channels. Users can record shows, and don't need to purchase or install any equipment.
Last month, Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Television, Univision, PBS, two local New York TV stations, ABC, Disney, CBS, NBCUniversal, Universal Network Television, and Telemundo sued Aereo for copyright infringement.
In responding to the suit, Aereo said consumers have the right to record broadcasts for their own personal use.
Diller reiterated that position at today's hearing, which examined the emergence of online video and also included appearances by executives from Amazon and Microsoft.
"You have an antenna that has your name on it, figuratively ... and it's one-to-one. It is not a network," Diller said. "It is a platform for you to simply receive, over the Internet, broadcast signals that are free and to record them and use them on any device that you like."
"What we're doing is we charge a consumer for the infrastructure that we've put together," Diller continued.
When asked by Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, if he considered himself a distributor, Diller said no. "If you would call an antenna that Radio Shack sells ... a distributor, then it would be analogous," he responded.
DeMint asked Diller how he might feel about Aereo if he were still a broadcaster. Diller said he would likely try to "protect his arena and do anything to prevent anyone else from getting into it."
"But I would also recognize that the part of being a broadcaster was receiving a free license and, in turn, you programmed in the public interest and convenience," he continued.
Diller called on the lawmakers to overhaul Telecommunications Act of 1996, which he said does not adequately take into account the impact of the Internet.
"I think the rules now need to reflect that there is a potential positive competitor to what has become a very closed system of programming," Diller said of the broadcast networks. "My goal in life is not to make them disappear but I think the Internet allows for competition."
For more, see PCMag's full review of Aereo and the slideshow below, as well as 5 Reasons Aereo Isn't a Cord Cutter's Dream.
For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.
