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The US Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Aereo, Inc. was violating federal copyright law by offering network television programming broadcast over the public airwaves to its paid subscribers via the Internet.

In a 6-to-3 decision, the high court concluded that the startup company, armed with innovative cloud computing technology, had a business model that was 鈥渉ighly similar鈥� to cable television firms that are required to pay transmission fees to the major broadcast companies.

As a result of that similarity, the majority justices decided that Aereo, also, fell within the bounds of federal copyright law.

鈥淗aving considered the details of Aereo鈥檚 practices, we find them highly similar to those of the CATV systems [that must pay transmission fees under federal copyright law],鈥� Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the court.

鈥淚nsofar as there are any differences, those differences concern not the nature of the service that Aereo provides so much as the technological manner in which it provides the service,鈥� he said.

鈥淲e conclude that those differences are not adequate to place Aereo鈥檚 activities outside the scope of the [Copyright] Act,鈥� Justice Breyer said.

In a dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said the majority was adopting 鈥渁n improvised standard (鈥榣ooks-like-cable-TV鈥�) that will sow confusion for years to come.鈥�

鈥淚 share the Court鈥檚 evident feeling that what Aereo is doing (or enabling to be done) to the Networks鈥� copyrighted programming ought not to be allowed,鈥� Justice Scalia said. 鈥淏ut perhaps we need not distort the Copyright Act to forbid it.鈥�

The decision marks a significant victory for the nation鈥檚 leading broadcast companies, shoring up their economic clout and power to demand fees from cable systems and others seeking to distribute programming that is originally offered free over the public airwaves.

At the same time, the decision will short-circuit what some analysts had viewed as a potential revolution in how Americans watch television.

The decision stems from a lawsuit filed by a group of major broadcasting companies seeking to shut down Aereo. The companies, including ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, and others, argued that Aereo was stealing their copyright-protected programming by intercepting it on the public airwaves and re-broadcasting it to Aereo subscribers via the Internet.

The company denied the theft charge. Company lawyers argued that Aereo鈥檚 innovation allowed the firm to offer subscribers the ability to watch broadcast television on their computer, tablet, or cell phone via the Internet. The service cost $8 per month.

Aereo鈥檚 technology was designed to take advantage of the original arrangement between the major broadcast companies and the federal government under which the companies were given access to the limited spectrum of public airwaves in return for providing their programming free of charge.

The broadcast companies make money by showing advertisements with their programs. The business model has proven highly lucrative.

But with the advent of cable television, the broadcast companies developed a second major source of revenue. They began to charge cable firms a fee for access to the programs the broadcast companies were offering free to anyone with a television and an antenna.

Aereo sought to exploit this business arrangement by using cloud computing technology to permit its subscribers to access an array of antennas and cloud-based digital video recorders to make a copy of any broadcast program and watch it almost immediately or at any time later.

The key question in the case was whether this innovation was an extension of public access to broadcasting or an attempt to steal copyright-protected programming from the broadcasters.

Aereo maintained it was simply an equipment provider, allowing its subscribers to decide which of the freely-available programming on the public airwaves they would like to watch or record.

The majority justices rejected this contention. 鈥淎ereo is not simply an equipment provider,鈥� Breyer said.

It was the company itself, not the subscribers, that was transmitting the networks鈥� programming, he said.

In his dissent, Scalia said there was an important difference between Aereo鈥檚 operations and those of cable television firms involved in re-transmitting network programs.

Under Aereo鈥檚 system, it was up to the subscriber to decide which program to watch. The Aereo system only began collecting the broadcast signals from public airwaves after receiving a request from a subscriber.

Scalia said that Aereo is like a copy shop that provides patrons with a library card.

鈥淎ereo offers access to an automated system consisting of routers, servers, transcoders, and dime-sized antennae,鈥� he said. 鈥淟ike a photocopier or VCR, that system lies dormant until a subscriber activates it. When a subscriber selects a program, Aereo鈥檚 system picks up the relevant broadcast signal, translates its audio and video components into digital data, stores the data in a user-specific file, and transmits that file鈥檚 contents to the subscriber via the Internet 鈥� at which point the subscriber鈥檚 laptop, tablet, or other device displays the broadcast just as an ordinary television would.鈥�

Unlike video-on-demand services, Aereo does not have a pre-stored selection of movies or programs.

鈥淭he key point is that subscribers call all the shots: Aereo鈥檚 automated system does not relay any program, copyrighted or not, until a subscriber selects the program and tells Aereo to relay it,鈥� Scalia said.

Scalia said that Aereo might be secondarily liable under the Copyright Act, but that it was not directly liable as claimed by the majority justices.

Breyer dismissed Scalia鈥檚 example. 鈥淭he dissent鈥檚 copy shop argument, in whatever form, makes too much out of too little,鈥� he said.

鈥淕iven Aereo鈥檚 overwhelming likeness to the cable companies targeted by the 1976 amendments [to the Copyright Act], this sole technological difference between Aereo and traditional cable companies does not make a critical difference here,鈥� he said.

Joining Breyer鈥檚 majority opinion were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito joined Scalia鈥檚 dissent.

The case was ABC v. Aereo (13-461).