Is there room for a new ?Bosman'? The latest developments in European Law on cross-border broadcasting of sports

AuthorArshak Mkrtchyan
Pages1-14
S.S.L.R. Is there room for a new ‘Bosman’?
1
Vol.2
Is there room for a new ‘Bosman’? The Latest
developments in European Law on Cross Border
Broadcasting of Sports
Arshak Mkrtchyan
EU’s continuing bid to create a Single Market through further harmonisation
of new areas such as copyright, together with Union’s new founded
competence in sport (established by virtue of Article 165 TFEU), creates a
certain tension with the desire of intellectual rights holders in media products
and services to maintain a national territory-based licensing system.
This paper examines the possible outcomes of the application of EU
provisions on freedoms of movement of goods and services as well as
competition rules to the cross-border satellite broadcasting of sports through
Conditional Access (CA) devices, by critical assessment of the judgment
delivered by the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European
Union (CJEU) in the joined cases of Football Association Premier League Ltd
and Others v. QC Leisure
1 and Others and Karen Murphy v. Media Protection
Services Ltd2.
Introduction
his paper intends to analyse the questions of compatibility of EU
provisions on free movement of goods and services as well as
competition rules with the territorial licensing of sport broadcasting
rights, as referred to the CJEU by the High Court for a preliminary ruling by
Burton LJ in the Murphy3 case and Kitchin LJ in the case of QC Leisure.4
The Murphy case was an action against licensees or operators of four UK pubs
that had shown live Premier League matches broadcasts through decoder
cards provided by the defendants in the QC Leisure case, obtained in Greece
and elsewhere and intended for private domestic use. These cards enabled the
unauthorised reception of non-Sky satellite channels, including NOVA and
ART operating in Greece and in North Africa.
1 Case C-403/08
2 Case C-429/08
3 Murphy v Media Protection Services Ltd, [2008] EWHC 1666 (Admin) .
4 Football Association Premier League Ltd v QC Leisure, [2008] EWHC 1411 ( Ch).
T

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