The creation of Aereo, the cloud television service, certainly stirred things up by creating a way for people to watch and record live TV through the Internet.

Even more amazing is that this little start up company appears to have created a legitimate fear within the big broadcast networks.

After failing to get an injunction against Aereo in the district and appellate courts, the big broadcasting networks, including NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox have petitioned to the Supreme Court to try and stop Aereo.

The innovative company uses a variety of antennas in each city it functions in to pick up the signals of local television stations. Then it streams the signals to people who pay $8 a month, essentially making it possible for people to use their smartphones and tablets as television sets.

Up until now, I have never had an issue watching any form of television on my computer, or seen a need for a service like Aereo.

While major networks agree the product is pointless and are putting in a strong effort to get rid of it, Aereo has used its antenna argument to dodge their attempts.

Aereo has argued that because they are merely providing the antennas to each viewer, they are not stealing content, but solely providing the device that has the capability to stream live TV from the big networks.

Furthermore, because every person who uses Aereo gets their own individual antenna, the courts have ruled that the Internet streams are not considered public performances. Ultimately, Aereo is claiming it is acting similarly to a Blockbuster movie store, just in a more innovative manner.

The district and appellate court rulings in the past year allow Aereo to avoid paying retransmission consent fees to local stations. Unfortunately for these local stations and their parent networks like ABC and NBC, these retransmission fees are significant add-ons to advertising revenue.

The loss of these fees is damaging, but even more damaging could be failing in the Supreme Court, as only 1 percent of petitions filed in the Supreme Court actually pass.

This then presents the idea of a world where Aereo remains indefinitely legal.

The unleashing of this cloud TV service could potentially empower the cable companies to conduct the same type of practices and set up their own individual antennas; this would allow the cable companies to avoid retransmission fees as well.

The loss of these profits has broadcast companies so nervous that some are even considering becoming a cable provider instead of a broadcaster.

However, maybe instead of panicking, the broadcasting companies simply need to let go of their pride.

As Farhad Manjoo’s article in pandodaily.com puts it, Aereo is “the world’s most ridiculous startup.” And the more I thought about the actual problem Aereo is attempting to solve, the more I agree.

Aereo lets us watch live TV legally from our computers. But don’t we do that already?

You can watch brand new episodes of any show just a few hours after it premieres on Project Free TV, or live sporting events through services like P2P file sharing.

Aereo itself poses no real competition to broadcasting companies. In his article, Manjoo goes on to point out that the big networks could offer the same service as Aereo for less money, which could possibly price Aereo out of the market.

The real impact of Aereo is that it alters the landscape of the television industry potentially taking away huge profits via retransmission fees from broadcast networks.

These networks, such as CBS and NBC, should not panic though. They need to accept the shift in the industry that technology has created and move on.

If they can manage this, then like every other big monopoly, they will find other ways to make large sums of money.

Bram Berkowitz is a senior advertising and entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at [email protected].

Published on October 24, 2013 at 1:55 am