Loss of licence not automatic
The relationship between using domestic Sky in the pub and losing your personal licence has been highlighted by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), but it is important to know the full picture.
Loss of the licence is not automatic. Under the Licensing Act, the courts have a general discretion either to suspend the personal licence of a person convicted of a "relevant offence" or order its complete forfeiture, which puts that person under what amounts to a five-year ban from holding a licence.
But relevant offences range from serious assault, theft, burglary and drunk driving, to the most minor offences against licensing laws - and, of course, infringements against copyright laws, of which the fraudulent use of a domestic receiver for public viewing is one. It depends entirely what the judge thinks, and also whether there have been previous offences. It may be decided that the licence should not be affected at all.
Even if an order is made, there is an appeals procedure, during which the licence can remain in force. Where the convicted person is also the designated premises supervisor and is a sole trader, loss of the licence would be the end of his business career. Even a suspension places him in grave difficulties.
Some years ago it was reported that the chairman of a leading Midlands bench of magistrates said, on ordering the forfeiture of a justices' licence after the licensee had been convicted for spirits substitution: "Pouring over is theft, and I won't have thieves running my pubs." There is some similarity now with the idea that double jeopardy is OK in licensing, and that you should lose your licence if you transgress any other relevant law.
A distinction should be made between this recent example, where there was clearly an attempt to get something for nothing, in the full knowledge that you cannot use a domestic card for pub customers, and the hotly debated use of foreign satellite decoders. Both are illegal, but for slightly different reasons, which is sometimes difficult to understand.
The holders of copyright are allowed to make different rules for different classes of users. There is no requirement that they should have a level playing field, because it will be market forces dictating what they do. It is the breach of their rules which creates the offence.
