As a matter of copyright law, television programs can be shown only by those who have that right or a license to do so. That’s why bars and hotels must pay a fee for the programming they show on their televisions. And broadcasters say that Aereo is similarly a middleman that should pay for what they consider a public performance.

Aereo was conceived in the belief that because the consumer is the one who is pushing the button to watch live or recorded programming, that transaction is one-to-one and not a public performance. That the DVR is in the cloud and the antenna is remote is, in Aereo’s view, beside the point. In its arguments, Aereo embraces both the past (consumers have been using VCRs and then DVRs to record programming for decades) and the future (everything from Dropbox to Google Drive lets the consumer store what he wishes without any liability on the provider’s part).

Speaking on the phone on Thursday, Mr. Kanojia said he liked his facts but had no idea how things would play out.

“It’s a bit of a coin flip,” he said.

A lot of people will be watching to see how that coin lands, less because of what it means for Aereo specifically than what it portends for the broader media ecosystem. A decision is expected this summer.

I spent time in Hollywood last week chatting with various executives, and Aereo was described variously as “a fencing operation peddling stolen goods” and “thieves masquerading as innovators.” That’s about as friendly as it got: Aereo may be small — Mr. Diller called it “a pimple” — but it represents something mighty important. If Aereo is allowed to store and transmit signals without payment, the television industry will be profoundly reconfigured.

Should Aereo win, the $3.3 billion in retransmission fees broadcasters now receive from cable companies will be in doubt, and in response, broadcasters might just stop broadcasting and become cable networks. Right now, broadcast signals reach about 117 million American homes, but cable penetration is so mature that approximately 102 million homes are now wired.

The vast majority of people already get their television, including the broadcast networks, through their cable or satellite service. If Aereo wins, networks could let the antennas go dark and tuck themselves inside the cable and satellite universe, where, like AMC or ESPN, they would then be paid programming fees.