Karen Murphy is a determined woman, and even though she was fined £8,000 about four years ago for breach of the Premier League’s copyright, she’s still fighting, and she may win. If she does it will mean a major upheaval for the League’s broadcasting strategy. Murphy is the proprietor of Red, White & Blue, a street-corner pub in Portsmouth, and her crime was bypassing the Premier League’s exclusive broadcaster, BSkyB and using a much less expensive Greek broadcaster to screen matches in her pub.
The Premier League said that Murphy had no right to go with the cheaper decoder, and sued her for copyright infringement. They won at that level, but Murphy has taken the case to a higher court. This week the Advocate General at the European Court of Justice, Juliane Kokott, ruled that Murphy did have the right. Since the opinion of the Advocate General is followed in about 80% of cases before the EU high court, it looks like a good possibility that the decision will be passed to the High Court in London after the EU panel meets in three months.
BSkyB and ESPN are the only two networks authorized to broadcast Premier League football matches in the UK at this time, and that is a very lucrative operation for them, and for the League. The current 3-year deal with BSkyB will make the League about £1.6 billion. BSkyB makes about £200 million every year from sales of subscriptions to commercial customers such as pubs. Both the Premier League and Sky are expected to fight the anticipated decision, on the basis that such a change in the structure of broadcast rights in the UK should be done through “proper legislative processes” and not through the courts.