Court of Justice of the European Union
PRESS RELEASE No 102/11
Luxembourg, 4 October 2011
Judgment in Cases C-403/08 and C-429/08 Football Association Premier League and Others v QC Leisure and Others Karen Murphy v Media Protection Services Ltd
A system of licences for the broadcasting of football matches which grants broadcasters territorial exclusivity on a Member State basis and which prohibits television viewers from watching the broadcasts with a decoder card in other Member States is contrary to EU law
The screening in a pub of football-match broadcasts containing protected works requires the authorisation of the author of those works
The Football Association Premier League (‘the FAPL’) runs the Premier League, the leading professional football league competition in England, and markets the television broadcasting rights for Premier League matches. It grants broadcasters, under an open competitive tender procedure, an exclusive live broadcasting right for Premier League matches on a territorial basis. As the territorial basis generally corresponds to a single Member State, television viewers can watch only the matches transmitted by the broadcasters established in the Member State where they reside.
In order to protect such territorial exclusivity and to prevent the public from receiving broadcasts outside the relevant Member State, each broadcaster undertakes, in the licence agreement concluded with the FAPL, to encrypt its satellite signal and to transmit the signal, so encrypted, by satellite solely to subscribers in the territory which it has been awarded. Consequently, the licence agreement prohibits the broadcasters from supplying decoder cards to persons who wish to watch their broadcasts outside the Member State for which the licence is granted.