Pub landlady vs Premier League and TV Broadcast rights across Europe
A court has been advised that EU law does not prohibit pubs showing live Premier League matches from foreign broadcasters.
A Portmouth pub landlady Karen Murphy showed Greek Novasports in her pub, meaning she was showing FA Premier League matches using a viewing card from another EU country, and not subscrbing to Sky UK or ESPN who have the rights for the UK.
Note that this is not law or anything legal.
It is just that the court has been advised on a decision.
If the case is won this would spark a revolution in the way media sports rights are sold across the continent, not just in the UK, but across the whole of Europe.
Julianne Kokott, one of eight Advocate General of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), said smart cards could not be restricted to a single territory and to do otherwise would be in contravention of the single open market. “The marketing of broadcasting rights on the basis of territorial exclusivity is tantamount to profiting from the elimination of the internal market,” she said
The case was referred to the ECJ by the High Court in London following an action brought by the Premier League against a company called QC Leisure, which sells subscriptions of foreign pay-TV platforms to people in the UK.
In a strongly worded statement, the Premier League said that if the opinion was reflected in the ECJ judgment, it would prevent rights holders across Europe from marketing their rights in a way which meets demand from broadcasters whose clear preference is to acquire, and pay for, exclusive rights within their own territory only and to use those rights to create services which satisfy the cultural preferences of their viewers within that territory. “If the European Commission wants to create a pan-European licensing model for sports, film and music then it must go through the proper consultative and legislative processes to change the law rather than attempting to force through legislative changes via the courts. The ECJ is there to enforce the law, not change it”.
An FA Premer League spokesman said that the advocate general’s view did not appear to be compatible with the “existing body of EU case law”.
The Premier League said that if the European Commission “wants to create a pan-European licensing model for sports, film and music then it must go through the proper consultative and legislative processes to change the law rather than attempting to force through legislative changes via the courts”.
“The ECJ is there to enforce the law, not change it,” the spokesman said
The court will rule on the matter in late April at which point the case returns to the UK’s High Court, where a verdict is expected before Christmas. The ECJ ruling will be binding on all EU member states. The case was referred to the ECJ because it involves two fundamental issues of European law – the free movement of goods and services and the ability of content producers to protect the copyright in their content.
Premier League decision could have implications for all other media rights
This is a clip from a Guardian newspaper feature, which again suggests that the EUs idea of rights ownership and how they are sol may backfire and ultimatly give one broadcaster a monopoly! SOmething I mentioned a few days ago in post #5!
In essence the choice is a simple one. It’s between selling TV rights to football, or whatever, on a country-by-country basis, or a pan-European basis. Now you don’t have to be a one-eyed backbench Tory to conclude that television is a national sport, and that we Brits don’t tend to watch German soaps, Danish quiz shows and, now you mention it, Greek football. But let’s say the European court sets all that logic aside and opts for the alternative, creating a single, pan-European market for TV rights deals in the future. Who would win then?
Would it be the plucky but poxy Greek broadcaster undercutting Sky? Hmm. Given how much interest the Premier League has in protecting its television-cash nexus, the footy suits will work hard to arrange the way it sells the rights to ensure that the pennies flood in. A simple way to do that would be to sell European rights to one broadcaster. And who is the most powerful pay-TV broadcaster across Europe? That, by the way, would be the vast News Corporation/Sky machine that has planted its dishes in Germany and Italy as well as the UK.
Nor is this a row about football and pay television. All media rights, from books to films, could be affected – and the result would be the same. Rather than the consumer benefiting from piles of cheap imported books and DVDs printed and produced and priced for – say – an east European member of the EU, the result would almost certainly be tighter pan-European control of rights by the big media groups, while the remaining small local players would get squeezed further. If you want a comparison, look at how concentrated the US media market is – a single market dominated by a handful of integrated media groups, Disney, Time Warner, News Corp and all.
you can read the whole article here: _http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/feb/07/premier-league-decision-media-rights