football-tv-rights
12 November 2013Copyright

Premier League ends YouTube copyright row

Video-sharing website YouTube and the English Premier League (PL) have gone their separate ways after a long-running copyright dispute, according to The Guardian.

The British newspaper says it has seen court documents revealing that the PL, joined by the French Tennis Federation, the National Music Publishers’ Association and other record labels, has agreed to drop its claims.

YouTube was accused of encouraging copyright infringement by allowing extracts of works, including clips of televised football matches, to be uploaded onto its site without permission.

The case was filed in 2007 at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, dragging on for more than six years. In the most recent development, in May this year, Judge Louis Stanton denied the PL’s request to file a class action against YouTube.

The Guardian said the parties agreed to a “voluntary dismissal”, meaning they will pay their own costs.

According to the paper, the settlement may allow football clubs to show delayed highlights of their games on their own YouTube channels.

The move is a sensible one for the PL, said David Hansel, partner at Hansel Henson LLP, as it now much easier for consumers to stream football matches via the Internet for free.

“For the Premier League, YouTube is far less of a threat than it once was. The killer content now is live football – and the new and relatively significant danger for the Premier League is live streams, which are being fought on a number of fronts.”

What is perhaps surprising about the deal, Hansel said, is that football clubs may be able to use YouTube channels to show highlights of their games.

“At the moment, the clubs (through the Premier League) have a website and you can watch clips of the games there through a premium service – there is a collective selling of rights by the Premier League. The clubs may now move to YouTube, but what’s to stop groups of clubs breaking away and controlling their own TV rights?”

Hansel noted, however, that such a change may not necessarily be bad for the PL.

“Even if there is a deal on people being able to watch clips on YouTube, the revenues will be dwarfed by the live TV revenues, I would have thought.”

To show live football from this season until 2015-16, broadcasting companies BSkyB and BT have shelled out more than £3 billion between them.

A YouTube spokesperson said: “We’re glad that the Premier League and the remaining plaintiffs agreed to dismiss their copyright claims against YouTube. Our focus is on building a great platform for our many content partners who earn revenue from YouTube, and the billion people who enjoy their videos.”

The PL declined to comment.

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