Back in 2006, 58 percent of voters in the state of Michigan decided that race shouldn`t factor into college admissions. That public colleges can`t give preferential treatment to people based on race, gender or where they are from. 

 

But last year, a lower court struck down the law saying it violates the U.S. Constitution`s guarantees of equal protection.

 

Well, this went to the Supreme Court, the final legal authority in the U.S. It ruled six to two that the lower court didn`t have the right to overturn Michigan`s law. So, it wasn`t a decision directly about affirmative action, but about who has the power to resolve the controversy. Because of the ruling, Michigan`s law against preferential treatment can`t stay in place.

 

Yesterday, the high court also heard the case involving Aereo. It`s a company that allows subscribers to watch and record TV channels without having to get cable, which is more expensive. Aereo has thousands of TV antennas. They captured the free over the air signals of TV stations, connect them to a DVR and then allows subscribers to watch them from a mobile device.

 

Now, it`s time for the nine justices of the Supreme Court to rule on whether Aereo is legal or not.

 

On Tuesday, the justices heard oral arguments in this case, which has been bubbling up for two years. Ever since Aereo came on to the market in New York City offering customers a new way to watch over the airwaves television stations via the Internet. Aereo charges $8 a month, and it disrupts the existing ecosystem for television in the United States. Because stations, local stations in New York City have gotten used to receiving retransmission fees from cable and satellite companies that want to rebroadcast their content.

 

While Aereo works around that system, it has its own array of tiny antennas that allow customers to watch TV without having to pay for cable or satellite and thus, without having to pay for those retransmission fees. All of the broadcasters say, this is a blatant copyright violation. And here on Tuesday, we heard a vigorous debate about what Aereo really is. The broadcasters say it`s a gimmick that should be essentially ruled to be illegal and made extinct. Aereo says it`s - this is not about copyright at all. They say what they are doing is perfectly legal because of the way they`ve set up the array of antennas.

 

Here in court, Aereo`s attorney argued they are just an equipment supplier. They just provide the same kind of technology that you could buy at RadioShack, but then they hook it up on the Internet so you can watch it from anywhere. The broadcasters` attorney on the other hand, argue that it is much more than that. That it is really a pirate cable-like system that is stealing their signals without permission and then providing them to customers and charging for it.

 

Most of the questions from the Justices revolved around a couple of key points: one is about the idea of public performance. Aereo says what they are doing is a private performance, but the broadcasters say, under the copyright law, what Aereo does is a public performance of their copyrighted content.

 

Both sides come out here to the Supreme Court steps after the hearing to speak about what they saw happened.

 

They are obviously concerned about the consequences, both for the broadcast industry and for other technologies, but I think they also understand that there is fundamental difference between a service that provides content in the first instance and something that provides simply essentially a stored service.

 

We are cautiously optimistic based on the way the hearing went today that the court understood that when a person watching over the air broadcast television in his or her home is engaging in a private performance, and not a public performance that would implicate the copyright act. 

 

The justices will rule at some point in the next two months, and until then Aereo will remain in limbo. 

 

Also in the news today, it`s been just over a month since a tremendous landslide swept over part of a community in Washington State. As the area was having of its most rain soaked months ever, a giant filled of land slipped, rushing downhill over homes and roads killing dozens of people. The search has been incredibly challenging.