The ever-increasing amount of money tied up in TV deals for Premier League football perhaps makes it unsurprising that The Football Association Premier League (“FAPL”) has been willing to litigate on a number of occasions against publicans using foreign satellite services to show football matches in pubs.

Following the CJEU’s decision in the joined cases FAPL v QC Leisure and Murphy (C-403/08 and C-429/08) and the subsequent High Court decision in FAPL v QC Leisure (here) the law in this area is relatively settled. Although FAPL can grant rights on a territorial basis, exclusive licences preventing the supply of foreign satellite decoder cards into other Member States are unlawful. Despite this, the FAPL on-screen graphics and logos incorporated into the live feeds of football matches are copyright protected works. FAPL is therefore able to bring actions for copyright infringement for any unauthorised uses of these. The success of such actions will depend on the terms of the agreement that a decoder card is supplied under.

As an aside, it may be possible for pubs to avoid infringement claims by only switching the screens on at kick-off, and attempting to cover up any FAPL logos and graphics. This would be challenging in practice however, given the frequency in which graphics pop up throughout the matches (for example when a player is booked or a replay is shown).

FAPL v Luxton

The Court of Appeal has recently added to the relevant pool of judicial opinion by rejecting an appeal by Mr Luxton, the proprietor of a pub in Swansea, against the summary judgment granted in favour of FAPL by the High Court in January 2014. Mr Luxton had used a domestic satellite decoder card originally sold by a Danish broadcaster to show Swansea City matches following Swansea’s promotion to the Premier League.  Mrs Justice Rose held that by using a domestic satellite decoder card rather than a commercial one, Mr Luxton was using FAPL’s copyright works without its consent.

Mr Luxton raised two EU law defences which have now been considered by the Court of Appeal (see here).

The two defences raised

1. That the proceedings brought by FAPL were an illicit attempt to prevent Mr Luxton from using a foreign decoder card, isolating the UK market from the continental market in breach of Articles 101 and/or 56 TFEU.
2. The (alleged) illegal arrangements between FAPL and its exclusive licensees in Europe had prevented Mr Luxton from obtaining a commercial foreign card; FAPL should therefore be prevented from exercising its copyright in respect of the domestic foreign card.

The Court of Appeal’s decision

Floyd LJ gave the leading judgment, disposing of both defences relatively quickly. On the first, he noted that in bringing the action, FAPL was relying on the right of a copyright owner to prevent the unauthorised communication to the public of copyrighted works. This right could also be enforced against a person in the UK who used a domestic card issued by FAPL’s UK licensee (Sky) for commercial purposes. The fact that Mr Luxton was using a foreign domestic card did not make any difference; FAPL’s right was not one that depended on the use of the card in a particular territory. Enforcement of the right could not therefore be capable of reinforcing allegedly unlawful agreements to partition the market.

Regarding the second defence, the judge did not consider Mr Luxton’s use of the domestic card to be a consequence of FAPL’s agreements and practices. Even if the effect of those practices was to starve the market of foreign commercial cards – that did not make the use of foreign domestic cards a natural consequence of FAPL’s actions. Though Mr Luxton thought he had purchased a commercial card rather than a domestic one, this could not change the outcome, as if his argument was correct a publican who deliberately sought out a foreign domestic card would be in the same position.

Comments on ‘Euro-defences’

The decision provided some interesting commentary on the overlap between IP and EU/competition law, noting that it “has long been recognised that in some circumstances an intellectual property right may become unenforceable because what lies behind it is an attempt to divide up the market in the EU contrary to the provisions on free movement”. A breach of the Treaty isn’t enough – there must be a sufficient connection between the exercise of the right and the unlawful agreement in question.

Floyd LJ cited Lord Sumption’s warning in Oracle that this sort of ‘Euro-defence’ “must be scrutinised with some care” due to the risk of litigation devaluing intellectual property rights by increasing the cost and delay associated with their enforcement. In that case of course, the Euro-defence was rejected on the grounds that the unlawful conduct relied on was collateral to the particular rights which the claimant was seeking to enforce.

Scope for Commission activity?

A further point of note is that the evidence adduced in this case showed the difficulty of actually obtaining a foreign commercial card. FAPL accepted that there is an arguable case that foreign broadcasters are still behaving as if they are bound not to provide commercial cards outside their national territories, and that if Mr Luxton had used a commercial card, he would have had an arguable defence that it authorised him to communicate the copyright works to the public in the UK. (Whether this defence would succeed may be the subject of further litigation in the future).

Cross-border access to digital services is a central part of the Commission’s Digital Single Market Strategy and this is evidently an area in which the Commission is willing to take action – see our thoughts on the Commission’s investigation into Paramount’s pay-TV licensing practices here. This is certainly a space worth keeping an eye on in the future, as if it continues to prove difficult to obtain foreign commercial cards, thereby defeating attempts to deliver digital services across borders, there may be grounds for action by the Commission.