Teleprompter Corporation v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc v. Teleprompter Corporation 8212 1628 72 8212 1633

• Decision Date: 04 March 1974
• Docket Number: Nos. 72,s. 72
• Citation: 39 L.Ed.2d 415,415 U.S. 394,94 S.Ct. 1129
• Parties: TELEPROMPTER CORPORATION et al., Petitioners, v. COLUMBIA BROADCASTING SYSTEM, INC., et al. COLUMBIA BROADCASTING SYSTEM, INC., et al., Petitioners, v. TELEPROMPTER CORPORATION et al. —1628 and 72—1633
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

415 U.S. 394

94 S.Ct. 1129

39 L.Ed.2d 415

TELEPROMPTER CORPORATION et al., Petitioners,

v COLUMBIA BROADCASTING SYSTEM, INC., et al.

COLUMBIA BROADCASTING SYSTEM, INC., et al., Petitioners,

v. TELEPROMPTER CORPORATION et al.

Nos. 72—1628 and 72—1633.

Argued Jan. 7, 1974.

Decided March 4, 1974.

Syllabus

Several creators and producers of copyrighted television programs brought this suit claiming that defendants had infringed their copyrights by intercepting broadcast transmissions of copyrighted material and rechanneling these programs through various community antenna television (CATV) systems to paying subscribers. The District Court dismissed the complaint on the ground that the cause of action was barred by this Court's decision in Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television, 392 U.S. 390, 88 S.Ct. 2084, 20 L.Ed.2d 1176. On appeal, the Court of Appeals divided CATV systems into two categories for copyright purposes: (1) those where the broadcast signal was already 'in the community' served by the system, and could be received there either by a community antenna or by standard rooftop or other antennae belonging to the owners of television sets; and (2) those where the systems imported 'distant signals' from broadcasters so far away from the CATV community that the foregoing local facilities could not normally receive adequate signals. Holding that CATV reception and retransmission of non-'distant' signals do not constitute copyright infringement, but that reception and retransmission of 'distant' signals amount to a 'performance' and thus constitute copyright infringement, the court affirmed as to those systems in the first category, but reversed and remanded as to the remaining systems. Held:

1. The development and implementation, since the Fortnightly decision of new functions of CATV systems—program origination, sale of commercials, and interconnection with other CATV systems even though they may allow the systems to compete more effectively with the broadcasters for the television market, do not convert the entire CATV operation, regardless of distance from the broadcasting station, into a 'broadcast function,' thus subjecting the CATV operators to copyright infringement liability, but are extraneous to a determination of such liability, since in none of these functions is there any nexus with the CATV operators' reception and rechanneling of the broadcasters' copyrighted materials. Pp. 402—405.

2. The importation of 'distant' signals from one community into another does not constitute a 'performance' under the Copyright Act. Pp. 406—415.

(a) By importing signals that could not normally be received with current technology in the community it serves, a CATV system does not, for copyright purposes, alter the function it performs for its subscribers, as the reception and rechanneling of these signals for simultaneous viewing is essentially a viewer function, irrespective of the distance between the broadcasting station and the ultimate viewer. P. 408.

(b) Even in exercising its limited freedom to choose among various 'distant' broadcasting stations, a CATV operator cannot be viewed as 'selecting' broadcast signals, since when it chooses which broadcast signals to rechannel, its creative function is then extinguished and it thereafter 'simply carr(ies), without editing, whatever programs (it) receive(s),' Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television, supra, 392 U.S. at 400, 88 S.Ct. at 2089. Nor does a CATV system importing 'distant' signals procure and propagate them to the public, since it is not engaged in converting the sights and sounds of an event or a program into electronic signals available to the public, the signals it receives and rechannels having already been 'released to the public' even though not normally available to the specific segment of the public served by the CATV system. P. 409—410.

(c) The fact that there have been shifts in current business and commercial relationships in the communications industry as a result of the CATV systems' importation of 'distant' signals, does not entail copyright infringement liability, since by extending the range of viewability of a broadcast program, the CATV systems do not interfere in any traditional sense with the copyright holders' means of extracting recompense for their creativity or labor from advertisers on the basis of all viewers who watch the particular program. Pp. 410—414.

5th Cir., 476 F.2d 338, affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded to District Court.

Robert C. Barnard, Washington, D.C., for petitioners in No. 72—1628 and for respondents in No. 72—1633.

Asa D. Sokolow and Seymour Graubard, New York City, for respondents in No. 72—1628 and petitioners in No. 72—1633.

Mr. Justice STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.

The plaintiffs in this litigation, creators and producers of televised programs copyrighted under the provisions of the Copyright Act of 1909, as amended, 17 U.S.C. § 1 et seq., commenced suit in 1964 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, claiming that the defendants had infringed their copyrights by intercepting broadcast transmissions of copy- righted material and rechanneling these programs through various community antenna television (CATV) systems to paying subscribers. ¹ The suit was initially stayed by agreement of the parties, pending this Court's decision in Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television, Inc., 392 U.S. 390, 88 S.Ct. 2084, 20 L.Ed.2d 1176. In that case, decided in 1968, we held that the reception and distribution of television broadcasts by the CATV systems there involved did not constitute a 'performance' within the meaning of the Copyright Act, and thus did not amount to copyright infringement.² After that decision the plaintiffs in the present litigation filed supplemental pleadings in which they sought to distinguish the five CATV systems challenged here from those whose operations had been found not to constitute copyright infringement in Fortnightly³. The District Court subsequently dismissed the complaint on the ground that the plaintiffs' cause of action was barred by the Fortnightly decision. 355 F.Supp. 618. On appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the judgment was affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the case was remanded to the District Court for further proceedings. 476 F.2d 338. Both the plaintiffs and the defendants petitioned for certiorari, and, because of the seemingly important questions of federal law involved, we granted both petitions. 414 U.S. 817, 94 S.Ct. 52, 38 L.Ed.2d 50.

I

The complaint alleged that copyright infringements occurred on certain dates at each of five illustrative CATV systems located in Elmira, New York; Farmington, New Mexico; Rawlins, Wyoming; Great Falls, Montana; and New York City. The operations of these systems typically involved the reception of broadcast beams by means of special television antennae owned and operated by Teleprompter, transmission of these electronic signals by means of cable or a combination of cable and point-to-point microwave⁴ to the homes of subscribers, and the conversion of the electromagnetic signals into images and sounds by means of the subscribers' own television sets.⁵ In some cases the distance between the point of original transmission and the ultimate viewer was relatively great—in one instance more than 450 miles—and reception of the signals of those stations by means of an ordinary rooftop antenna, even an extremely high one, would have been impossible because of the curvature of the earth and other topographical factors. In others, the original broadcast was relatively close to the customers' receiving sets and could normally have been received by means of standard television equipment. Between these extremes were systems involving intermediate distances where the broadcast signals could have been received by the customers' own television antennae only intermittently, imperfectly, and sporadically.⁶

Among the various actual and potential CATV operations described at trial the Court of Appeals discerned for copyright purposes, two distinct categories. One category included situations where the broadcast signal was already 'in the community' served by a CATV system, and could be received there either by standard rooftop or other antennae belonging to the owners of television sets or by a community antenna erected in or adjacent to the community. Such CATV systems, the court found, performed essentially the same function as the CATV systems in Fortnightly in that they 'no more than enhance the viewer's capacity to receive the broadcaster's signals,' 392 U.S., at 399, 88 S.Ct., at 2089. The second category included situations where the CATV systems imported 'distant' signals from broadcasters so far away from the CATV community that neither rooftop nor community antennae located in or near the locality could normally receive signals capable of providing acceptable images.

The Court of Appeals determined that '(w)hen a CATV system is performing this second function of distributing signals that are beyond the range of local antennas, . . . to this extent, it is functionally equivalent to a broadcaster and thus should be deemed to 'perform' the programming distributed to subscribers on these imported signals.' 476 F.2d, at 349. The Court of Appeals found that in two of the operations challenged in the complaint—those in Elmira and New York City—the signals received and rechanneled by the CATV systems were not 'distant' signals, and as to these claims the court affirmed the District Court's dismissal of the complaint. As to the three remaining systems, the case was remanded for further findings in order to apply the appellate court's test for determining whether or not the signals were 'distant.'⁷ In No. 72—1633 the plaintiffs ask this Court to reverse the determination of the Court of Appeals that CATV...