premier league to crack down on illegal match broadcasts

[Stevie H]

Premier League goes to war on internet pirates

• Action wanted on broad front to combat rogue websites

• League fears illegal broadcasts will reduce its income

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/ja...egal-broadcasts

 

 

The Premier League is planning an aggressive campaign to protect its intellectual property rights in an attempt to clamp down on rogue websites that show football matches for nothing and pub landlords who broadcast foreign feeds, amid fears that they could damage its income from broadcasting rights.

 

Having recently recorded a surge in the number of people watching via websites that transmit live pictures from overseas broadcasters or allow users to share vision using "peer-to-peer" video sites, the league is determined to push the issue up the political agenda.

 

Premier League lawyers want the culture secretary, Andy Burnham, and the business secretary, Lord Mandelson, to crack down on copyright infringement by making internet service providers responsible for the actions of their subscribers, and appoint an "IP tsar" to coordinate action across government.

 

Having been vigilant for years against wholesale piracy the league's lawyers have recently taken a high-profile lobbying role in the UK, Europe and internationally. The league has been liaising with sporting authorities around the world, media owners and other affected parties to highlight the need for urgent action and more consistent enforcement.

 

The chief executive, Richard Scudamore, last week told the all-party IP group of MPs that the government needed to take a harder line and do more to implement the recommendations in a report on copyright by Andrew Gowers. Stephen Carter, the communications minister, is due to unveil a draft report on the future of Digital Britain next week.

 

"The ISPs have got to take more responsibility," said a Premier League lawyer. "We have sent over 700 cease-and-desist letters and had an 87% success rate this season. [but] one of our problems is that often the sites reregister a domain name, using false names and addresses, and sign up with an ISP in a less protected country – 60% of peer-to-peer activity has been coming out of China. ISPs have to take on a stronger role and have a better enforcement policy."

 

The league said that when officials from countries traditionally seen as "safe harbours", such as China, were confronted about piracy, they typically asked why more was not being done by the UK government or within Europe.

 

Already millions of computer users across the world watch matches live without paying a subscription fee. The Premier League fears that the mainstream use of broadband and the increased popularity of watching video online make widespread piracy a very real prospect, which could seriously reduce the amount broadcasters are prepared to pay.

 

Sporting authorities are terrified of following the path of the music industry, which saw its business model collapse after it failed to combat digital piracy. The league made £625m from its overseas rights deals last time around and a total of £2.7bn overall, and is banking on another increase after 2010 to compensate for a potential dip in domestic income.

 

The Premier League recently led a coalition of 27 sporting bodies to prepare a background report for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development at the behest of the G8. The report said unauthorised live streams of some sporting events were already being watched by more than one million people.

 

Websites that offer access to live unauthorised coverage from PCs, usually sourced from overseas broadcasters in the Far East or around the world, have been popular with a small minority of web users unwilling to pay for a TV subscription for some time.

 

Poor quality pictures and audio, combined with the determination required to track them down, previously made them a niche pursuit. But with feeds now of a higher quality and easier to access there are fears that more and more cash-strapped fans will turn to them.

 

And with many of the illicit feeds originating from China and elsewhere around the world, the Premier League is reliant on specialist internet firms to track them down and persuade internet service providers to punish individuals.

 

Late last year, the Premier League threatened action against the US website, Justin.tv, which allows its users to share and stream footage from all over the world. It has also launched a high-profile class action against YouTube, which is expected to be heard in the US later this year. The original class action, launched in 2007, was recently superseded by a second complaint at the end of last year.

 

Scudamore has been bullish about the prospect of the value of its media deals holding up despite the global economic slump that has affected media companies and their advertisers, because live Premier League crucial is considered so crucial to their business models.

 

Major US sporting bodies are also taking the prospect of revenue loss from illicit online viewing seriously. Major League Baseball, the National Football League and the National Basketball Association have all taken steps to stem the rising tide of online piracy. MLB employees three people full-time to monitor illegal broadcasts and last year recorded 5,000 separate incidents.

[Sion]

They're fighting a losing battle, same with music and films and that. They can scare people and hope to reduce the numbers, but at the end of the day they're powerless to stop the majority.

[smithdown]

Hmmm. Would advertisers who pay billions of pounds be happy to have these broadcasts cut? It's the same principle as moody digi-boxes, wtf do the advertisers care how their ads get into peoples' homes so long as it does?

 

They get their logo splashed all over the world through this streaming and seeing as it's the likes of them that pay the tv channels in the first place, won't they get the hump a little bit?

[The Hitman]

Premier League lawyers want the culture secretary, Andy Burnham, and the business secretary, Lord Mandelson, to crack

I would've thought Mr Mandelson's rather busy right now to be bothering with this s*ite...

[Stevie H]

Hmmm. Would advertisers who pay billions of pounds be happy to have these broadcasts cut? It's the same principle as moody digi-boxes, wtf do the advertisers care how their ads get into peoples' homes so long as it does?

 

They get their logo splashed all over the world through this streaming and seeing as it's the likes of them that pay the tv channels in the first place, won't they get the hump a little bit?

fair point that about the adverts getting into people's heads regardless, but i bet that the league covered that in the contracts they signed with the broadcasters and advertisers etc.

[smithdown]

fair point that about the adverts getting into people's heads regardless, but i bet that the league covered that in the contracts they signed with the broadcasters and advertisers etc.

 

Just thinking that with yonder credit crunch and so on, advertisers are cutting down as it is. I have a little theory that it's them that push this stuff out anyway. If you were trying to get as much exposure as you could for as little money as poss, getting some bloke to stream games/crack codes for snide boxes would make proper commercial sense.

[muleskinner]

I would've thought Mr Mandelson's rather busy right now to be bothering with this s*ite...

 

The Premier League is a high profile huge industry, why wouldn't the government get involved in trying to protect the revenues it brings? They can't be seen to be ignoring it.

[Molby]

I would've thought Mr Mandelson's rather busy right now to be bothering with this s*ite...

 

 

exactly

 

reminds me of when they tried to do that woman for being a false witch or something during WW2 and Churchill went mad

 

said something along the lines of "why are we bothering with this tomfoolery when we are fighting for our lives?"

 

f***ing Sky are virtually a necessity now - every household has it

 

the Norwegian is on at dozens and dozens of pubs on Merseyside; can't see them closing it down

and btw, this is just what small independent pubs need isn't it?..compounds the smoking ban and the cc nicely

[smithdown]

and btw, this is just what small independent pubs need isn't it?..compounds the smoking ban and the cc nicely

 

Spot on.

[Billy Talbot]

I can't see how they can make watching foreign satellite in pubs illegal.

 

I can see how pubs with sky AS WELL as foreign satellite can be sued as it's against their sky contract.

[muleskinner]

I can't see how they can make watching foreign satellite in pubs illegal.

 

I can see how pubs with sky AS WELL as foreign satellite can be sued as it's against their sky contract.

 

Because Sky and Setanta pay billions between them to have sole live broadcast rights in the UK. Taking on the Murdoch billions in court to prove otherwise is a non-starter.

[kop205]

There must be loopholes though. Otherwise, I just don't see how it could have gone on for so long. I know they bring the odd case from time-to-time and often threaten to go for it big time, like they are again - but it just doesn't seem to happen.

 

The snide foriegn channels have been around for at least, what, 10 - 12 years now? It started with the Norwegian as far as I can remember, then the Arabic stations for a while too, but there are all sorts now. My local used to show it on Albanian and now shows it on Supersport which I think is South African?

 

Sky and the Premier League created this insatiable desire for football on the television by f***ing around with kick off times and the like, and found that the desire is exactly that - insatiable. People are no longer happy to 'just' watch the dozen or so games a season we'll be on Sky/Setanta - they want every match now and who can blame then once the appetite was whetted?

 

It is ironic and amusing in equal measure that they are the architects of their own misfortune in many ways. I'd never buy Sky because of Murdosch, but don't need to eitehr now i can get it all online or in the pub on a dodgy foreign channel, so whilst I doubt that they actually are losing all that much, I hope to God they they are!

[Bologna]

Spot on.

The irony is that this represents a reasonable form of competition compared to the farce of the Setanta-Sky duopoly where you have to pay more money than you did under the Sky monoply to purchase the complete football package.

[Rimbeux]

c****. If they should take anything from music, it should be that rather than chasing millions kids across the world, they should offer a value for money high quality service that gives people what they want, the ability to watch PL games online. This action is crass and futile and poor business

[Stevie H]

and btw, this is just what small independent pubs need isn't it?..compounds the smoking ban and the cc nicely

dead right. sky makes a profit, players are paid absurd wages, ticket prices to the match continue to rise and meanwhile fans can't even watch a moody match in a pub over a pint. football continues to vanish up its own a***.

[John am Rhein]

intellectual property rights

 

WT F-ing F?!?!?!

 

How do they manage to attach that phrase to football broadcasts?

 

Time for a war on copyright!!

[Stevie H]

WT F-ing F?!?!?!

 

How do they manage to attach that phrase to football broadcasts?

 

Time for a war on copyright!!

for IP read exclusive distribution rights. same as movies, tv, anything else. it isn't a sport any more.

[John am Rhein]

for IP read exclusive distribution rights. same as movies, tv, anything else. it isn't a sport any more.

 

Yeah, somehow a well-intentioned legal principle protecting actual intellectual property has got widened to a ridiculous level where it can be used to protect all kinds of non-intellectual activities from broadcasting Big Brother to selling jeans and t-shirts.

 

I get the impression this has been stealthily inserted into world trade agreements, trade treaties and the like.

[Stevie H]

Yeah, somehow a well-intentioned legal principle protecting actual intellectual property has got widened to a ridiculous level where it can be used to protect all kinds of non-intellectual activities from broadcasting Big Brother to selling jeans and t-shirts.

 

I get the impression this has been stealthily inserted into world trade agreements, trade treaties and the like.

i think it's just a question of nomenclature as movie studios have been doing exclusive distribution rights deals for decades. i first heard about intellectual property rights back around the dotcom boom, which i think at the time meant the copyrighting / patenting of an idea or thought process, something intangible. am sure lawyers on here can correct this. it's possible the term has been around longer as a part of the patenting system.

[Crazy Horse]

Perhaps I wouldn't need to ust streaming sites if the f*****s would make it possible for me to watch our games where I live. So sick of football these days.

[Paddy 66]

The stupid thing is that Sky have put its prices up for businesses so much they are driving Pubs towards foriegn tv feeds, my local has italian sky because is about a 3rd of the price of UK sky.

Edited January 23, 2009 by Paddy 66

[SkippyjonJones]

Perhaps I wouldn't need to ust streaming sites if the f*****s would make it possible for me to watch our games where I live. So sick of football these days.

Do what? I don’t think I’ve missed any games thanks to both setanta and fox showing them. And espn for the CL.

[Bologna]

The plot thickens..........

 

Premier League braced for ruling on pubs showing live football

 

European Court of Justice considers test case

 

Victory for landlords 'would destabilise market'

Owen Gibson

The Guardian

Friday 23 January 2009

 

The Premier League will this summer face a potentially devastating challenge in the European courts, after lawyers said there was a "strong possibility" that the little-noticed case would undermine the ­principle that UK landlords must pay Sky or Setanta for the right to show live football in their pubs.

 

Legal experts said yesterday that the case, the latest round of a long-running battle with publicans over showing overseas broadcasts on a Saturday afternoon, could overturn the basis on which the Premier League sells its TV rights.

 

Last year, the high court passed a test case involving several UK publicans to the European Court of Justice for advice. It is due to reach a decision by the summer.

 

European law prevents pirated decoder cards being used to access broadcasts illegally. But the publicans will argue that their decoders were legitimately bought in Greece and imported by a distributor. Under free-trade laws, they will argue that they should be allowed to import decoders and cards from other member states. Lawyers at Denton Wilde Sapte, which has acted for a range of sporting bodies including the Premier League, said the threat was significant.

 

The firm's senior associate Alex Haffner said: "The strong possibility of the ECJ and the UK high court finding in favour of the publicans is a direct challenge to the right to license media rights on a territory-by-territory basis and to the willingness of pay-TV operators to pay handsomely for exclusive rights within their markets."

 

The Premier League is expected to argue that if the ECJ finds in favour of the publicans it would destabilise the market and disadvantage consumers. It is expected to argue that the devices are obtained using false names, and point to links with organised crime.

 

If it were to lose the case, then not only would pubs be able to avoid paying an average of £9,000 a season to show Sky and Setanta matches, with a knock-on effect on the amount broadcasters were prepared to pay, but it could impact on Saturday match attendances. Under the current deal, media companies paid £2.7bn over three years for the rights to Premier League matches.

 

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/ja...-european-union

[Molby]

The plot thickens..........

 

 

 

but it could impact on Saturday match attendances..

 

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/ja...-european-union

 

 

 

of course, that's why we always sell out in spite of every 'hood on Merseyside having 10 pubs that show the match at 3pm Satdee, on the rare occasions we play then

 

 

this is a clear case of the potential benefits of redistribution of income and the accompanying income multiplier effect

 

so: pub landlord takes a bit of income off fat cat Sky, stays in business, spends income on items that need producing, and thus employment is generated

 

compare and contrast with Murdoch getting a few more quid in his pocket

 

he already has everything and would not fuel demand for goods in the economy were he to have that few extra quid - what's he gonna do with the money? nothing, that's what

 

it's like the difference between Monty Burns and Mo (Mo's Tavern) getting an extra £10k p.a.

 

the system works, just needs benign legislation to oversee it

[Bologna]

 

 

it's like the difference between Monty Burns and Mo (Mo's Tavern) getting an extra £10k p.a.

 

You've lost me there, mate.

Prison slang?