A federal judge has upheld the right of the Dish Network satellite service to continue offering consumers the technology to watch television on devices like tablets and phones.

US District Judge Dolly Gee of Los Angeles found that the Dish Anywhere service does not infringe the copyrights of broadcasters. The Tuesday decision, [PDF] if it survives appeal, is significant because it allows consumers to watch television on non-television devices outside the home. What's more, the litigation was seen as a first test case following the Supreme Court's decision last year in which the high court essentially shuttered broadcast streaming service Aereo.

Fox had seized on the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision in a bid to bolster its position. The high court held that Aereo was offering services akin to a cable company and therefore needed the broadcasters' permission to retransmit their content to online viewers. Armed with that decision, Fox argued that the high court's decision meant that the Dish Anywhere streaming platform should also be declared illegal because Fox did not consent to the retransmission of its content to mobile devices.

Judge Gee, however, ruled that Dish customers have a "fair use" right to watch television as they see fit, because they have legitimately obtained the programming and Dish pays transmission fees to obtain the content from Fox, which brought the long-running suit in 2012.

"The ultimate function of Dish Anywhere is to transmit programming that is already legitimately on a user’s in-home hardware to a user’s Internet-connected mobile device," Gee wrote.

Aereo had maintained it didn't have to pay retransmission fees because it was offering viewers a newfangled method to capture free broadcast television over the airwaves with tiny antennas. Aereo customers rented up to two dime-sized antennas that were housed in facilities across the country. The antennas captured local, over-the-air broadcasts and funneled them to local customers in real time. The content was freed to stream to most any Internet-connected device. Another antenna synced with a DVR for later viewing for about $12 monthly.

The Supreme Court didn't agree with Aereo's argument, leaving the industry and interest groups scratching their head on how the ruling would be applied elsewhere.

"Consumers are the winners today, as the court sided with them on the key copyright issues in this case. This decision has far reaching significance, because it is the first to apply the Supreme Court's opinion in Aereo to other technology," said R. Stanton Dodge, Dish's general counsel.

John Bergmayer, a staff attorney for the digital rights group Public Knowledge, said the Aereo decision "created some uncertainty as to the future of viewer rights with respect to programming." He said Judge Gee's ruling "is a welcome indication that TV viewers still have the right to record TV they have lawful access to, and play it back at the time and place and in the manner of their choosing."

Fox said in a statement that it was "disappointed" with the ruling.

The judge also upheld consumers' right to use Dish's AutoHop, which records and automatically removes commercials of broadcast television. Fox claimed that such a service would undermine its business model, which is based on advertising.

When it comes to the AutoHop feature, retransmission agreements have given broadcasters some leverage over Dish.

Under a transmission arrangement with CBS last year, Dish agreed to block the ad-skipping function for that network for seven days following an initial broadcast. A deal with ABC last year called for a three-day delay.

Fox and Dish have agreed to table a court trial on the dispute as they negotiate a new transmission deal.