MSE News: Premier League free streaming sites: Is it legal?

Former_MSE_Helen

"Broadband providers have been told to block access to a site offering live Premier League games..."

Read the full story:

Premier League free streaming sites: Is it legal to watch after court ruling?



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Skie_2

I know people are fed up with paying so much for Sky Sports and only getting a fraction of the games, with many not broadcast in the UK but broadcast elsewhere.

Surely if they are actually broadcasting a non-UK stream then the recent EU pub ruling would apply? It's only when you re-broadcast the Sky or BT feed that you are really breaking the law.

Kite2010

That's one I haven't heard of, thanks Premier league for the promotion.

ACG

The recent EU pub ruling stated that you could watch TV from another provider within the EU. Outside the EU and it was illegal.

So greek/French tv was fine - but only if your paying for it otherwise its still copyright infringement just from another country.

It was to do with competition laws. If you had arabic TV then it was illegal.

dogmaryxx

MSE News: Premier League free streaming sites: Is it legal?

Must be else it would go against Forum rule.


Illegal/grey area topics
Please don't discuss illegal issues or those that are grey areas in law on this forum.

VisionMan

ACG wrote: »

The recent EU pub ruling stated that you could watch TV from another provider within the EU. Outside the EU and it was illegal.

So greek/French tv was fine - but only if your paying for it otherwise its still copyright infringement just from another country.

It was to do with competition laws. If you had arabic TV then it was illegal.

The Karen Murphy case through up many worms. The outcome of which was some foreign access was legal (private use) and some foreign access was illegal (commercial use).

So in a perverse way, the Greek Sat system the pub landlady Karen Murphy was using was deemed illegal, she did ultimately win.

A complex case, to be sure.

CC-Warrior

Despite what the Premier League say, viewing content on these sites is not (yet) illegal. All these blocks are merely free promotion for the site holders. Anyone with half a brain can still access them. Circumventing the blocks isn't illegal.

VisionMan

It's also interesting to note that there are three local pubs in my area and they all use foreign Sat systems to access the UK Sky Sports games. And they are going to continue to use them too, they have said. Because they all think theres enough of a grey area to continue with them.

In regard to online access, as CC-Warrior said, circumventing blocks isn't illegal. So the ISP's will never be able to stop it. They will only be able to enforce Court Orders.

Kingchamp

Its the year 2013 and i still cannot watch every Arsenal game from my home. Thats my problem, i have no choice as it is not live, so only choice i have is to use a foreign channel that is live to watch.

Then there is the price. These companies just dont learn and as the price goes up andup the more will move to online options, especially now we have much faster broadband.

Get with the times. Iwould pay a fiver a game or something, but i dont want to pay 30/40 or more for something i dont want.

The_Jakal

It's nice to see that they are introducing laws and restrictions to benefit the big companies as opposed to looking out for people who: want to watch every game from their team, can't afford £30+/month etc......

I know it's not as straight forward as this but why don't Sky offer the games online for free? They would still make money from advertising (potentially more because of the increased viewing figures).

Or why don't they charge a small fee per game as someone above has mentioned?

I know that they want to keep it an exclusive club and are worried about sites like First Row eating into their profits but it's not as if their owners are struggling to make end meet is it??

ChopperST

The_Jakal wrote: »

Or why don't they charge a small fee per game as someone above has mentioned?

They do - http://www1.skysports.com/nowtv/