Two men fined £1m for illegal Premier League broadcasts
Two men who supplied UK pubs and hotels with illegal access to broadcasts of football games have been ordered to pay close to £1 million ($1.3 million) for the crime.
Simon Hopkins and Leon Passlow were sentenced at Guildford Crown Court on Friday, September 30.
They were ordered to pay back £992,947.60 within three months or they could each face up to seven years in prison.
Hopkins and Passlow ran a company called Digicams, which supplied a variety of systems that allowed businesses’ customers to view live Premier League football without having to make the appropriate payments.
The pair obtained Sky and other viewing cards using false names and addresses and then sold them to businesses including hotels, pubs and betting shops.
Further, the men enjoyed “lavish lifestyles” from the crime and drove expensive cars and bought “thousands of pounds” worth of jewellery, according to a statement from the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT).
In August 2015, Hopkins and Passlow were sentenced to three-and-half years in prison, which they are now serving, after they pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud between 2008 and 2012.
The prosecution was brought by the Premier League, which worked with Surrey Police and FACT.
Kieron Sharp, director general of FACT, said: “The court has confiscated £992,000 of their criminal funds and the pair are already serving lengthy sentences in prison. This should serve as a strong warning that ultimately intellectual property crime does not pay.”
A Premier League spokesman said: “This case provides further evidence that companies and individuals which illegally supply Premier League football to pubs and commercial premises risk jail time for doing so.”
John Olsen, partner at law firm Locke Lord, told WIPR: "This result from the Guildford Crown Court is very much to be welcomed. It underscores the efforts made by legitimate business men and women to protect them themselves against the unscrupulous who wish to undermine the trust and confidence consumers have in a system that aims to reward innovators and creative efforts of business owners, and enable consumers not to be misled over who stands behind the products they buy.
"IP crime, particularly in the online era, costs legitimate business and taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds each year. Every business needs to register its brands and obtain patents on inventions in accordance with the law so that they can avail themselves of the benefits of the IP system if needs be," he added.
