The ongoing legal battle between the major American TV companies and Aereo, a two year old start-up that delivers TV programmes over the internet, has finally reached a conclusion, causing Aereo to cease operations. 

Although this decision addresses the interpretation of a particular service in light of US copyright law, the Aereo case is the latest in a line of significant test cases from across the globe which address copyright issues in the context of cloud-based television services.  The decision has immediate implications in the US for content owners and broadcasters on the one hand, and Aereo-type streaming services on the other, whose models essentially rely on primary broadcast transmissions without payment of licence fees for the underlying content or re-transmission rights.