Under a cloud of uncertainty: Legal questions affecting internet storage and transmission of copyright-protected video content

The rapid growth of multimedia consumption has triggered technical, economic, and business innovations that improve the quality and accessibility of content. It has also opened new markets, promising large revenues for industry players. However, new technologies also pose new questions regarding the legal aspects of content delivery, which are often resolved through litigation between copyright owners and content distributors. The precedents set by these cases will act as a game changer in the content delivery industry, and will shape the existing offerings in the market in terms of how new technologies can be deployed and what kind of pricing strategies can be associated with them. In this article, we offer a tutorial on key copyright and communications laws and decisions related to storage and transmission of video content over the Internet. We summarize legal limitations on the deployment of new technologies and pricing mechanisms, and explain the implications of recent lawsuits. Understanding these concerns is essential for engineers engaged in designing the technical and economic aspects of video delivery systems.