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Online sports live streaming does not fall under the scope of broadcasting rights, but such rights can be extended. Copyright should not be affected in any case and it is subject to even more stringent obligations in Italy.
C More Entertainment AB v. Linus Sandberg Case C-279/13
In 2007, C More Entertainment, a pay-TV station broadcasting live on its Internet site ice hockey matches against the payment of a fee by subscribers sued Mr. Sandberg for copyright infringement, since he created links enabling the paywall to be circumvented so allowing free access to the broadcasting of the events.
The European Court of Justice (CJEU) held that live streaming on the Internet (unlike the broadcasting of on-demand contents) is outside the scope of protection granted to broadcasting organisations as “acts of communication to the public” by the InfoSoc Directive 2001/29/EC. The scope of broadcasting rights can be extended by EU Member States, but this is without prejudice to the protection of copyright.
Court Precendents from the ECJ
This decision comes after the Svensson (C-466/12) and BestWater (C-348/13) cases where the CJEU had clarified that
- providing a clickable link to, embedding a link and framing a copyright work could constitute an act of “communication to the public“, and thus potentially give rise to a copyright infringement, provided that
- such communication is directed to a “new public“, i.e. a public that was not taken into account by the copyright holders.
The Italian style Notice & Take Down procedure
Italian Copyright Law strictly reproduced the provision of InfoSoc Directive concerning the exclusive rights of broadcasting organizations. But according to some commentators, broadcasting rights might cover also the live streaming of sports events under Italian law.
This leads to the additional question on whether sports events are copyright protected works which is again arguable. Such circumstance is relevant in the view of the expetitous notice and take down procedure before the Italian Communications Authority for copyright breaches occuring on the Internet. Such procedure has placed considerable obligations on hosting providers, including potentially social media given its tight timing and the potential sanctions also for foreign websites.
This procedure goes beyond was requested by the US DMCA and the EU E-Commerce Directive and is requiring an additional work of compliance also because ISPs are requested to respond to complaints within 5 days!
Finally, the matter is even more complicated since video hosting websites have been subject of a number of court cases in Italy with the most recent cases taking a more protective position for hosting providers.
@GiulioCoraggio
