US sports broadcaster Premium Sports said it would appeal a decision by a New York court to allow a bar in the city to show sport to customers through a Slingbox device, which allows programmes to be shown over the internet free-of-charge on a slight delay from a different part of the world.
Premium Sports had argued in court that a Scotland v Wales national team football match in February 2010 had been illegally screened live in the Old Castle Pub without using its signal. The company claimed this was illegal because Premium Sports held the exclusive rights to deliver the match live to bars and restaurants in the US through a closed-circuit IPTV feed.
However, New York district court judge Katherine Forrest agreed with the bar’s owner, Eugene Rooney, that the game was not shown ‘live’, as the feed was being delivered from a Slingbox device in Dublin, Ireland, and was therefore being seen on a delay of about one minute.
“We respectfully disagree with the judge on this decision and we are appealing,” Premium Sports chief executive Shane O’Rourke told the Irish Central website. “We will continue to monitor bars who steal the events we show, be it a residential broadband feed, illegal IP or Slingbox. We will continue to sue those that steal our events. But for the most part we talk to them first before we reach that stage.”
He added: “The law is not set on this and, if it were [pay-television broadcaster] DirecTV and many other companies they would push to change it. For example, DirecTV has 40,000 bars that take the [American football] NFL commercially. As you can imagine, they would not let this stand and neither will we.”
The judge ruled that the bar had not intercepted the transmission, and the action being shown in the bar was “not the initial transmission.” She said it was a rebroadcast of an initial live signal that had been legally acquired in Dublin.
Rooney said: “It takes so much time and money to stand up to these people and most pubs will just cave into Premium’s demands to avoid the hassle. I knew we were in the right and I was not going to back down.”
Premium Sports shows exclusive live football, rugby, Gaelic sports and boxing action from the UK and Ireland in the US, primarily selling to commercial premises, including bars and clubs, although residential viewers can watch some events on the internet. The broadcaster’s chief executive Shane O’Rourke formerly ran international pay-television broadcaster Setanta Sports’ North American business.