Satellite TV case to go to ECJ
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In a judgment of over 45,000 words and 98 pages, handed down this morning in the case of the Football Association Premier League & others v QC Leisure & others [2008] EWHC 1411 (Ch), the Honourable Mr Justice Kitchin has delivered a tentative blow against the rights of satellite broadcasters such as BSkyB to protect their exclusive rights to broadcast football games to subscribers in individual EU countries. The IPKat thanks James Wilmore of The Publican for letting him have a copy. Interested readers can find a copy on the IPKat’s Google Groups site until the judgment becomes available on BAILII.
The three combined actions involved in this case concerned the use of foreign decoder cards in the UK to access foreign transmissions of live Premier League football matches. The claimants complained that the dealing in and use of such cards in the UK involved an infringement of their rights under s.298 of the CDPA 1988, as amended, and of the copyrights in various artistic and musical works, films and sound recordings embodied in the Premier League match coverage.
The defendants argued that the use of copyright law to effectively prevent them from using decoder cards in the UK which had been legitimately bought in other EU states was contrary to EC law. Several Directives were cited, the key one being 98/84/EC, also known as the Conditional Access Directive. The main issue (of many) appeared to be whether the decoder cards (bought in Greece, imported and used in the UK) were to be regarded as “illicit devices” under the terms of this Directive.
Both sides put their arguments at length, and yet Kitchin J felt that he was unable to come to a definite conclusion, considering that a proper interpretation was not clear and that…