The curtain has come down on the long running Hollywood movie/pay-TV licencing saga (see here).

Plot synopsis

This epic has seen Sky and major Hollywood movie studios do battle with the Commission over exclusive territorial restrictions in copyright licences (see here).

Midway through, Paramount offered Commitments to the Commission, removing these restrictions in its pay-TV licence agreements (here). The ending was never in doubt once French Film Producer Canal+ lost its challenge before the CJEU (here).

In the final act, the Commission (cast as sheriff of the Digital Single Market), has accepted formal Commitments from Disney, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. and Sky to remove all restrictions on unsolicited (or “passive”) sales.

Characters and chronology

US film studios typically license films to a single pay-TV broadcaster in each Member State.

In July 2015 the Commission sent a Statement of Objections finding that clauses in film licences for pay-TV between Disney, Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. and Sky UK breached EU competition law.

These clauses required Sky UK to block access to the studios’ films through its online pay-TV services and/or through its satellite pay-TV services to consumers outside its licensed territory (UK and Ireland) (so-called “geo-blocking”), and required some of the studios to ensure that broadcasters outside the UK and Ireland are prevented from making their pay-TV services available in the UK and Ireland.

Crucially, these clauses restrict the ability of broadcasters to accept unsolicited requests (so-called “passive sales”) for their pay-TV services from consumers located outside their licensed territory.

Last stand – the Commitments

In July 2016 the Commission accepted a series of Commitments from Paramount (see here) to remove all restrictions on passive sales, and in March 2019 the Commission accepted similar Commitments from Disney, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. These specify that:

• When licensing its film output for pay-TV to a broadcaster in the EEA, each committing studio will not (re)introduce contractual obligations that prevent such pay-TV broadcasters from providing cross-border passive sales to consumers that are located in the EEA but outside of the broadcasters’ licensed territory (no “Broadcaster Obligation“).
• When licensing its film output for pay-TV to a broadcaster in the EEA, each committing studio will not (re)introduce contractual obligations that require the studios to prevent other pay-TV broadcasters located in the EEA from providing passive sales to consumers located in the licensed territory (no “Studio Obligation“).
• Each committing studio will not seek to enforce or bring an action before a court or tribunal for the violation of a Broadcaster Obligation and/or Studio Obligation, as applicable, in an existing agreement licensing its output for pay-TV.
• Each committing studio will not enforce or honour any Broadcaster Obligation and/or Studio Obligation in an existing agreement licensing its output for pay-TV.

Similarly, Sky will:

• neither (re)introduce Broadcaster Obligations nor Studio Obligations in agreements licensing the output for pay-TV of Disney, Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros., and
• not seek to enforce Studio Obligations or honour Broadcaster Obligations in agreements licensing the output for pay-TV of Disney, Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros.

The commitments will apply throughout the EEA for five years and cover online and satellite pay-TV and video on demand services.

The critics’ review

The Commitments have allowed the Commission to reprise its role of as the sheriff of the Digital Single Market and scourge of geo-blocking.

However, while the Commission is able require the elimination of contractual territorial sales restrictions it cannot alter the fact that copyright law is national, rather than harmonised at the EU level, as illustrated by the copyright carve-out in the Geo-blocking Regulation (see here).

Therefore, it seems likely that anything other than a pan-EU licence will leave the broadcaster exposed to the risk of infringement proceedings if it sells into countries not covered by the licence.

Noel Watson-Doig