Locast Ordered to Pay $32 Million Fine; Never Exist Again

In a dismal end to its promise to deliver free, legal broadcast streaming solutions to Americans who would otherwise lack television access, the over-the-air streaming service Locast has agreed to pay a $32 million fine and cease operations for good, according to a Thursday court filing.

Founded in 2018 by David Goodfriend, an attorney who served as an aide in the Clinton Administration and a legal advisor at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, Locast had operated under the intrepid logic that it could avoid running afoul of copyright law as long as it remained a noncommercial entity. Even after the Supreme Court torpedoed Aereo—a similarly-structured startup that had offered subscribers streaming content for a fee—Locast had remained adamant that its donation-based, ostensibly free service qualified for a legal exception that allows for the secondary transmission of broadcast programming so long as it’s “made by a governmental body, or other nonprofit organization, without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage.”

In a 2019 New York Times article literally titled “Locast, a Free App Streaming Network TV, Would Love to Get Sued,” Goodfriend had touted the infallibility of Locast’s seemingly airtight legal strategy.

“We really did our homework,” he said. “We are operating under parameters that are designed to be compliant within the law.”

Seemingly accepting the challenge, the Big Four networks—ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC—filed suit six months after that article was published, alleging that Locast was “simply Aereo 2.0,” and that it had, in fact, used the donations it received from viewers for its own commercial advantage—specifically to fund its expansion into new markets.

“Locast is not a public service devoted to viewers whose reception is affected by tall buildings. Nor is Locast acting for the benefit of consumers who, according to Locast when promoting its purportedly free service, ‘pay too much,’” stated the complaint filed by the networks in New York federal court in July of 2019. “Locast is not the Robin Hood of television; instead, Locast’s founding, funding, and operations reveal its decidedly commercial purposes.”

In August of 2021, a New York federal judge effectively delivered a lethal blow to Locast’s primary defense, siding with the networks in his decision that the streaming app had, indeed, fallen outside of that exception by using donations to expand into 36 markets, eventually serving 55% of the U.S. population. Following that decision, Locast had first suspended operations back in September—a suspension that will now, sadly, turn permanent.