• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, November 26, 2013

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. found Alki David's FilmOn X in contempt of court for operating its service in Boston, in defiance of a court order prohibiting the company from streaming TV shows.

But U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer held off on fining the company. Instead, she reportedly said that she will impose $20,000 a day in fines for future violations of her order. This means that even though the finding might reflect poorly on FilmOn X, it doesn't leave the company  worse off than before.

Back in September, Collyer sided with broadcasters, who sued FilmOn X for copyright infringement. The broadcasters alleged that FilmOn X retransmits shows without a license when it streams TV programs to users' iPads, iPhones and other devices.

Collyer prohibited the company from operating its streaming service anywhere in the country, except for New York, Vermont and Connecticut. (Those three states are within the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled earlier this year that Aereo doesn't infringe copyright with its streaming system, which uses similar technology as FilmOn X.)

Collyer also made clear she's not a fan of FilmOn X's founder, billionaire Alki David. Reportedly, she called him “uncouth” several times during yesterday's hearing. David later tweeted the remark.

Collyer's name-calling seems unusual, to say the least. After all, most judges don't take personal shots at litigants. The comment also raises questions about whether Collyer's impression of David played a role in her decision that his company's technology infringes copyright.

One of the oddities of the legal battle over this technology is that the Barry Diller-backed Aereo has been winning in court, and FilmOn X is losing. Both companies reportedly use the same technology to stream over-the-air TV shows to consumers' iPads, iPhones and other devices. And both companies argue that their systems are legal for the same reason: their architecture.

Aereo and FilmOn X have installed thousands of tiny antennas that pick up over-the-air broadcast signals and then stream the programs to users. The companies say the streams are “private” performances, on the theory that they're made on an antenna-to-user basis.

The broadcasters argue the opposite: They say the companies are infringing copyright by “publicly” performing programs -- which only copyright holders are allowed to do.

So far, judges have sided with Aereo in New York and Boston. FilmOn X, by contrast, has lost cases in California and Washington, D.C. Given that the technology is new, it's not surprising that judges view it differently. But whether a particular streaming video system is legal or not really shouldn't hinge on the personal qualities of the founders.