Anthony Luxton showed the matches in his pub in the Welsh city of Swansea using a satellite card issued by a Danish broadcaster.
The Premier League asked the High Court in London for summary judgment, arguing that Luxton’s defence had no realistic prospect of success at trial.
Mrs Justice Rose agreed with the football organisation, granting the League’s application and issuing an injunction barring further unlawful screenings.
But Luxton’s lawyer, Paul Dixon of Molesworths Bright-Clegg, told Managing IP that his client would seek leave to appeal the decision.
Dixon also represented Portsmouth pub landlady Karen Murphy in high-profile litigation over her decision to show matches in her pub using a Greek decoder.
The CJEU ruled in that case that football matches themselves could not be protected by copyright, and that national governments could not stop people obtaining and using foreign decoder cards.
But it said copyright subsists in material displayed on the screen, such as the logos and graphics that appear when goals are scored, when statistics are presented and during breaks in play. There is also copyright in the Premier League anthem that is played before the start of each football match.
All this material exists in the TV feed that Premier League Productions supplies to all international broadcasters and cannot be stripped out by technology.
Following the Murphy case, the Premier League stepped up its investigations of thousands of pubs in the UK.
In a statement the League said: “We welcome confirmation from the High Court that The Rhyddings Hotel in Swansea was infringing our copyright with its broadcasts of Premier League football. We are pleased that the Court awarded an injunction against the infringing premises together with an order for damages and payment of our costs. We are currently undertaking our largest ever investigations programme and have commenced legal action against several pubs and will continue to do so.”
Managing IP understands that it has so far sent more than 50 cease-and-desist letters though the Luxton case is the first to reach the courts.
Dixon said that any appeal would focus on questions relating to free movement of services in the European Union. He argued that the CJEU in the Karen Murphy case had ruled that EU law does not prevent an individual from buying a domestic subscription in another EU member state to watch Premier League matches or from buying a commercial subscription. In practice, however, the sports broadcasters do not allow the sale of decoders outside national territories. “This effectively makes it a cartel,” Dixon said.
The Commission announced last month that it would investigate restrictions in Pay TV services. “It has started with the film industry but it doesn’t mean that it won’t get around to sports broadcasting,” said Dixon.
But a Premier League spokesman denied there was any abuse of competition law: “This case was decided in summary judgment, with no requirement for a full trial. That suggests our case was overwhelmingly strong.”
