Pubs in Cardiff and Swansea suspected of showing Premier League football matches illegally using foreign satellites face prosecution, BBC Wales has learned. In the last four months the Premier League's private investigation firm has visited nearly 200 pubs in south Wales. The League is planning to bring up to 100 prosecutions across Wales and England this season. The first will be against The Rhyddings Hotel in Brynmill, Swansea, shortly. Many south Wales pubs have subscriptions with foreign channels and show Cardiff City and Swansea City's 15:00 GMT Saturday Premier League kick-offs. These games are unavailable on the Premier League's authorised UK broadcasters - Sky Sports and BT Sport - at the kick-off time. When we go in and find use of foreign satellite systems we'll give them the opportunity to get rid of that system” In 2011 Karen Murphy, a Portsmouth pub landlady, won a court case against the Premier League. The ruling effectively proved it is legal to buy a TV subscription from anywhere in the EU. However, when a pub or club uses such a subscription to show Premier League football matches, it is breaking copyright law if the League's logo is shown in on-screen graphics, or if the League's anthem is heard before kick-off or at half time. Tom Richards, a barrister specialising in copyright law, said it was unlikely a pub could screen the games without breaching Premier League copyright. "The Premier League owns the copyright in its logo, in its anthem and in other bits of sound recording and artwork which are superimposed on any feed of a Premier League match," he said. "If you play those in a pub without the Premier League's consent that's copyright infringement in the law of copyright. "Technically speaking, there is a loophole. "If you could separate out the copyrighted content, such as the Premier League logo, from the match footage, then in theory you wouldn't be infringing copyright. Pub banner Pubs screening matches illegally will be warned first "In practice it's rather doubtful whether that can be achieved because the Premier League - you can be confident - will make it as hard as possible to separate out the protected from the unprotected content." Some pubs try to use this loophole by blocking out graphics of the Premier League logo. But the League says its private investigation firm, ID Inquiries, has not come across any "masking technology" that would stop it taking action against a pub. So far this season ID Inquiries has visited 195 pubs in the Cardiff and Swansea areas and is planning legal action against "a small number of them". 'Black spots' Dan Johnson, the Premier League's director of communications, said: "BT Sport and Sky Sports invest huge amounts of money in the Premier League and that then is in turn invested by the clubs in new stadia, developing players, acquiring players, the whole range of things that make Premier League football so popular. "So anything that damages the ability of broadcasters to invest in that has the potential to damage the ability of the clubs to invest in that. "With the advent of Cardiff and Swansea being in the Premier League clearly the interest in Premier League football has gone through the roof in south Wales. "So, it becomes an area of interest and you can go round the country and you can see these blackspots where Premier League football is of great interest, and people will try and utilise that interest to their advantage, including pubs and clubs. "We want to help pubs, we want to help educate licensees, and when we go in and find use of foreign satellite systems we'll give them the opportunity to get rid of that system." "So if in the first instance - they say 'we hear you, we'll get rid of this system and we'll get a legitimate one' - they will face no further action and we don't want to be going round the country prosecuting pubs and licensees. "However if they choose not to, they face the very real prospect of prosecution." Mr Johnson says the League expects to bring up to 100 prosecutions this season across Wales and England. The action against The Rhyddings Hotel in Swansea is the League's first prosecution since the Karen Murphy case and is expected to be heard in the next few weeks.
I hope the Rhyddings wins, as the Premier League are under Pressure from Sky, nothing but a racket and cartel, and now that BT are screening footy as well, less will be available on free view. These pubs and clubs are providing a service from overseas satellite, that is not available by Sky or BT, you only get a few selected games for the Swans most coverage is of the top 4. If they do succeed I will still watch it on my laptop, or smart TV, whether it is deemed legal or not, as far as I see it, it is restrictive practise, and falls foul of open market competition, simply another scam from big business! I hope there is an EU loop hole for our pubs and clubs that are already suffering from government strangulation and taxation...................
I know a lot more pubs using foreign satellite channels to show football...I cant see how anyone can stop them to be honest, its a free market so you should be able to use who you like if you have the right equipment to receive a signal.. More and more establishments are looking to save the extortionate prices sky charge and who can blame them...
It's a nothing case. The EU laws are not like ours, they are plain and simple and have very few loopholes. And this particular part of EU law has absolutely no loophole, and the EU law says there must be fair competition across the EU. Judges will throw the case out in due time. If the Premier League keeps doing this then the EU will have no hesitation throwing a fine their way to the tune of over one hundred million pounds for repeatedly attempting to restrict the free market . They have fined others companies Billions for it... And I am mean 000,000,000 scale fines !
Greed has been ruining "The Beautiful Game " everywhere , most of all the last 20 or seaons of the Premier League .It's pretty sad really.
Ha ha, I knew this wood affect you dragon,now you will never see the swans play again! About time to stopping scroungers and freeloaders.
Microsoft have been fined big money for restricting free trade, and the biggest fine was the last one which resulted from them going to a national appeals court in Germany. Essentially they were fined about 700 million for restricting free market for web browsers, and they failed to address issue, so they were fined another 700 million. About two years passed and neither fine was paid, they incurred a whopping 900 million fine for the non payment. Now, that there is already well over 2 billion, so Microsoft did pay it all eventually but they still didn't stop restricting the free market. Internet Explorer was still bundled into Windows. 1 billion more in a fourth fine! They didn't like it and went crying to Germany and launched an appeal hoping the Germans would overrule the EU courts. For doing that and trying to restrict free (trying to restrict free trade is different to actually restricting free trade) they were given a fifth fine... €1,400,000,000. A further 1.4 billion... Just for appealing! Microsoft eventually introduced that option we now see to install other web browsers lol. The Premier League is a minnow compared to Microsoft and if a giant like them can't beat the system, there is no way a pipsqueak like Sky or EPL can do better. They won't get fined billions due to it being proportional to revenue, but more than 100 million is something Brussels would not lose any sleep over. Google was fines 1.4 billion as well, for selling data only to American companies thus not allowing fair trade with EU companies. The data wasn't even European, in fact it was American data! But google made the mistake of having a new EU based HQ in Ireland, so they now play to our rules haha!
Project your a man after my own heart, in the early days I was very often revers engineering Microsoft software, including windows, I'm was aware of their breaches of competition rules, but didn't know they had tried to worm out the way you have stated only to incur more costs, love it and good enough to, it seems Google need their wings clipped, so much data abuse. lets hope that Sky and Barclay's Premier league get it to!...................
This might be Sky's last roll of the dice to claw as much cash as it can before BT whallop them in the next bidding round, they could be using the Premier League as a proxy for the case. I was shocked to learn BT can buy Sky several times over and in a couple of years it's growth indicates it may even have the might to buy the parent company News Corp. I read an article where economists said it was not in BTs interest to raise prices for football if they won all the big Premier League contracts, because for them it is all about the broadband which is a much bigger business. Keeping the subscriptions low keeps customers buying BT broadband, and eventually Infinity, which could in theory carry 2K quality across all BT channels. 2K is something Sky could offer but on a very limited channel offering due to satalite bandwidth, so many things going for BT's broadband to knock a rival like Sky off it's perch. The sweetest part of the article though was about Freeview. To not fall foul of monopoly wars BT could buy every single Premier League contract, then literally gift one or two to a Freeview channel and these would be the two lowest profile bids. Sky may not be in the market to be there to bid for BT's leftover contract because they said the whole business was built on the football, lose it and they'll go bust in a couple of months... The leftover bidding for BT's two lowest profile contracts will take longer to pan out. Imagine that, no more Sky AND only Freeview/Freesat as available competition!! Is it coincidence that BT is already gifting 10 Champions League matches to Freeview and Freesat next year, free of charge?! This cash they have paid is nothing to that company, just a pittance, yet Sky can't even match it
As long as there is no catch Project, but Sky have needed their wings clipped for a long time!.....................
This would get laughed out of EU court. Would the Premier League seriously say that they sold broadcasting rights to EU networks without copyright permission to show their logo's. British court may be a different story.
You should buy what you like off whoever you like if they are selling the same product...Sky don't want that to happen but they cant stop it happening. the only way they can beat these other companies is to under cut their prices. Im not going to go in one shop and buy a loaf of bread for £1.50p if i can go in another shop and buy the same brand loaf for a quid am i.....Its called competition and sky had better get use to it...
