Los Angeles Times

Two of the nation's preeminent legal experts on copyright law are siding with broadcasters in their legal fight against Aereo, a start-up service that transmits local television signals via the Internet.

In a brief filed at the Supreme Court, UCLA School of Law professor David Nimmer and Peter Menell, a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law, warned that if Aereo were found to be legal it could "decimate multiple industries." The broadcasters are hoping that the high court will overturn the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruling that found Aereo's transmissions and recordings are not "public performances" of copyrighted material.

The new distribution contract CBS signed with Time Warner Cable last summer after a bitter fight could be a casualty of Comcast's proposed acquisition of TWC.

According to people familiar with the deal, it does not include provisions protecting all the terms of the pact should Time Warner Cable be acquired by a distributor with a sweeter arrangement. These people requested anonymity because the agreement is confidential. Terms of the CBS-Time Warner Cable pact were never publicly disclosed, but Comcast, which signed a 10-year distribution agreement with CBS in 2010, is believed to be paying a lower fee to carry the network's TV stations. Should Comcast get regulatory approval of the Time Warner Cable purchase, it can carry CBS under its current deal.