Play by the rules

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In an effort to clear up confusion over football screening, Adam Withrington puts your questions to Raymond Hoskin of copyright watchdog FACT.Last...

In an effort to clear up confusion over football screening, Adam Withrington puts your questions to Raymond Hoskin of copyright watchdog FACT.

Last week Janet Kenny, licensee of the Dog and Partridge pub in Wigan, Lancashire, stood up in court to have her trial date set for April 8. Her crime? Showing unauthorised broadcasts of Saturday afternoon Premiership football.

This is a very sensitive subject for many licensees, who feel the golden business opportunity that is live Premiership football has been compromised by Sky price hikes and interference by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT).

Last June Sky increased the subscription fee for its Sky Sports package by up to 25 per cent while the cost of signing up to Premiership Plus, Sky's pay-per-view station, rose by 100 per cent.

The FA Premier League does not allow any British broadcaster to show Premiership games on a Saturday afternoon between 2.45pm and 5.15pm - called the "closed period".

Despite this British curfew, the Premier League has sold broadcasting rights for games to several countries in Europe and beyond.

Many publicans see this as grossly unfair and have subscribed to foreign satellite stations to try and show Premiership games on Saturday afternoons as a way of raising revenue. However, FACT, of which the Premier League is a member, has stepped in and told licensees they are breaking copyright law by showing such games.

FACT followed up its warnings by making its first prosecution in October 2003, when William Clark of Ryan's bar in Radlett, Hertfordshire, was fined £500 for showing a game on a Saturday afternoon, using a legally obtained Spanish satellite system.

Many licensees refuse to accept FACT's arguments and see the whole issue as a greedy attempt by the Premier League to control the output of live games - especially when they see their rival pub up the road continuing to show "illegal" broadcasts on Saturday afternoons and remaining unpunished.

In an effort to clear up the confusion The Publican put some of the questions licensees have raised over the past few months to Raymond Hoskin, litigation manager for FACT.

Isn't this yet another example of Sky's greed and desire to crush any resistance to its monopoly?

This dispute has nothing to do with Sky. It does not own the copyright, the Premier League does.

But this closed period is an example of the Premier League's greed and desire to milk as much money from all quarters isn't it?

The closed period was arranged when the Premier League was set up in 1992 at the request of Football League clubs to protect their attendances.

If the Premier League decided to open the closed period, you can bet your bottom dollar Sky TV would be the first company in there with the highest bid.

But don't you agree that the big clubs, like Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, will get full houses whenever their games are played and whether or not they are on TV?

The Premier League's fear was that if a big match was on TV on a Saturday afternoon people would stay away from matches involving lower division clubs.

Plus there were a lot of protests from people running school and junior sport saying it would put off youngsters playing in school or club matches at that time. The closed period was never introduced to protect the big clubs - their attendances will be high regardless.

If the Premier League sells live rights to foreign stations and we get legally obtained foreign satellite decoders why can't we show the matches at 3pm on a Saturday?

The Premier League owns the copyright to all the games and is simply protecting it. It has not sold the copyright in this country. If you wrote a book, you would control the copyright of it. People wouldn't simply be able to get hold of a copy of the book, take it to Germany and print it and sell at whatever price they liked over there. The same applies with football rights.

What about European Union law that insists on free trade between member countries?

It has got nothing to do with European law, it is all about copyright law. If rights are sold to a particular country the games can only be watched within the borders of that country, unless the copyright owner says otherwise. So when the Premier League sells games to, say Canal Plus in France, the copyright agreement is that it can only be watched in France.

This is all very well but what if I have bought a perfectly legal satellite system that has had VAT paid on it - how can that be illegal?

If licensees have paid VAT on their satellite systems then that is only because they believed the vendor who asked them to pay VAT. I do not blame publicans for these problems - they have been misled by the people selling the equipment.

Why should I take any notice when the pub up the road shows these so-called illegal broadcasts without punishment?

We tried to be friendly at first and simply warn licensees. But the letters we sent round were widely ignored. So we have started the process of taking people to court - it is slow but we are getting there.

The Publican says:

You could argue that showing football on Saturday afternoons is a grey area legally - European law being what it is, it is conceivable that the EC might want to pursue this issue and attempt to overturn the law.

But the undeniable truth is that one licensee has been convicted and several more are due in court imminently. If you are still showing live Premiership football on a Saturday afternoon, you are breaking the copyright laws.

And while The Publican has been critical of Sky's pricing policy and is greatly concerned at excessive and market-exploiting price rises, licensees should be mindful of this: since football was first televised live in the 1960s, the closed period has always been in existence. It is not an elitist policy that was suddenly introduced by the Premier League when it was formed in 1992.

If you strongly disagree with what FACT has to say on this topic please contact Adam Withrington at nqnzj@gurchoyvpna.pbz​ or post your comments below.

Related topics Legislation

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