Broadcasting Bacchanal: Watching Football and Copyright Law

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Broadcasting Bacchanal: 

Watching Football and Copyright Law


Dr Justin Koo


With the launch of the 2022/2023 English Premier League football season, there is once again controversy in the Caribbean region concerning broadcasting rights. There is nothing new about this scenario as ever so often there is news about conflict pertaining to which entity has the broadcast rights to the latest sporting event. Disputes over broadcast rights have been litigated in the Jamaican court system on at least two occasions concerning the broadcasting of the 2015 World Athletic Championships[1] and the 2014 IAAF Diamond League.[2]

The latest controversy concerning the broadcasting rights for the 2022/2023 Premier League football season begins with the rights being granted to a new entity, Verticast, for the entire Caribbean region.[3]Subsequent to the grant of the broadcast rights to Verticast, territorial sub-licences have been made to a number of different broadcasters and cable companies across the Caribbean. However, two of the major players, FLOW and Digicel are not licensees. Consequently, there has been notable uproar in Trinidad and Tobago, where subscribers to FLOW and Digicel who represent a large number of persons were suddenly left without access to the English Premier League.

Why is this relevant to intellectual property? Well, broadcasts of sporting events are covered by copyright law. Even though the actual sporting event/match cannot itself be subject to copyright protection, the broadcasting of the live event and any subsequent recordings amount to copyright protectable works. Therefore, the broadcaster has a property right over the broadcast and its recordings, which allows for it to exclusively control where and how it is communicated to fans. It is this ownership of the copyright that gives rise to the exclusive licensing model that segments markets by geographic territories and often means there are limited ways to legitimately access the sporting event in question. I am sure you have tried to access content online only to be greeted by a notice that it is not available in your region. Similarly, some television channels in your subscription hace foreign-language advertisements or content. This is all because of the territorial licensing model used by content owners.

So the question is, where did you watch Crystal Palace vs Arsenal on Friday 5 August 2022? Chances are that if you live in Trinidad and Tobago, you accessed the match using illegitimate means. The number one source of copyright infringement pertaining to football matches results from the use of illegal streaming websites. This should be broken down into two types of infringement. Type 1 infringement concerns the person who made the stream available on the internet. This person is liable for an infringement of the right of communication to the public. Type 2 infringement occurs where websites aggregate hyperlinks facilitating access to illegal streams. This has also been deemed to be an infringement of the right of communication to the public under EU copyright law. With this in mind, are you an infringer by merely watching an illegal stream? The answer is potentially yes especially in countries where there is no temporary copy exception to reproduction infringement. This is because watching an illegal stream whether on the computer, television or mobile device will involve the making of unauthorised temporary reproductions on your screen. Are you going to be sued for copyright infringement, probably not. Thus, the issue is mostly a moral conundrum for the individual to grapple with.

Instead of suing individual users who consume illegal streams, the Football Association Premier League has focused its attention on blocking access to websites that aggregate hyperlinks to the streams. Website such as firstrowsports have been subjected to blocking injunctions. Such is the value of football broadcasts, that a new type of injunction was invented, the live injunction, which allows right holders to block access to live events that infringe the copyright in their sports broadcasts, as they are made available online.[4] This is the only way of preserving the value of live sporting events. Granting injunctions after the fact is practically useless given that a concluded football match has limited financial value. Likewise the grant of damages cannot really compensate for the harm caused by illegal streaming. 

With all that said, football broadcasts involve big money. As such, right holders tend to demand large sums of money for the grant of licences. It is this licensing model that has facilitated the expansion of football leagues into what we know today. Without copyright law to protect the value in the broadcasts these developments would not have been possible.


[1] Television Jamaica Limited v CVM Television Limited [2016] JMSC COMM 21.

[2] Television Jamaica Limited v Linscom Network Limited [2018] JMCC COMM 18.

[3] Newsday, ‘EPL rights in C’bean awarded to VertiCast Media Group’ Newsday (Trinidad and Tobago, 1 April 2022) <https://newsday.co.tt/2022/04/01/epl-rights-in-cbean-awarded-to-verticast-media-group/>

[4] Football Association Premier League Ltd v British Telecommunication plc [2017] EWHC 480 (Ch).

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