Satellite TV

[secsee1]

Does yesterday's ruling by the EU mean that everybody including pubs & clubs
can now access sports events by using a foreign (EU member) decoder without threat of prosecution from either Sky TV or the premier league ?

[VHG]

No.

The ruling was an EU ruling and has been passed back to the UK for further ruling.

However the EU did say that the Sky logo, Sky theme tune and other Sky images are copyright and therefore cant be use by foreign TV companies.

Therefore if say Greek TV show a Sky match (with the Sky logo etc) then they are breaking copyright.

Funnily enough the EU said the match itself is NOT copyright.

Of course Sky may counter this by putting the Sky logo all round the edge of the pitch, or on players shirts or whatever, making the whole thing copyright.

We have not heard the end of this.

[VHG]

There is more on the BBC web page here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15162241

Note it says:

"Whereas the decision opens up opportunities for individuals to watch overseas broadcasts at home, it remains unclear whether in future games can be shown in pubs using foreign decoders and broadcasts, as the ruling also threw up a number of copyright issues".

[Twenty20]

Not sure about the Sky logo around the edge of the pitch or on footballer's shirts bit. As an analogy, it would mean that if you took a photo, for instance, of a street scene which happened to have a Sky logo in a TV shop window, you could never publish it? And any shirt sponsor at the moment could stop a game being broadcast because it infringed their copyright of the logo on the shirt?

[ichkeria]

Surely the ruling about the logo relates to companies using it either to pass themselves off as Sky, or to "pirate" their broadcasts.
Having Sky logos around the ground would be free publicity for Sky, and as such they would presumably be happy for them to be broadcast.
That's what pitch advertising is there for in the first place.

[secsee1]

Thanks to everybody who answered, it seems it has opened a big can of worms.