In Sky Ltd v Airlie [2024] CSOH 22, the Court of Session in Scotland held that the display in a bar of TV provider graphics on broadcasts shown on customer devices infringed copyrights in the graphics.
After the bar owner’s commercial subscription to the broadcasts lapsed, he acceded to a suggestion by customers who were subscribers to the “Sky Go” app (which was a free adjunct to a residential subscription to the broadcasts) that the app subscription could be used to show the broadcasts in the bar on the customer’s own devices such as mobile phones, tablets and computer monitors. The situation escalated to the point where a monitor indistinguishable from a moderately-sized flat-screen TV was brought in and placed on a prominent shelf in the bar, so that matches being shown on it were visible to virtually anyone in the bar.
The court held that the showing of the claimants’ match broadcasts in the bar in circumstances where any member of the public who chose to enter the bar could view them constituted a communication to the public within the meaning of sections 16 and 20 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Therefore, the showing infringed the second claimant’s copyright in the graphics displayed during the broadcasts. There was no evidence that the second claimant had authorised residential subscribers further to communicate the graphics to members of the public through the app. Therefore, the court granted a perpetual interdict (the Scots law equivalent of an injunction) against repetition of the infringing conduct.
However, the court did not award damages because the evidence addressed at quantum related to subscription fees for the broadcasts, not the right to show the copyrighted graphics. Even so, it authorised the claimants to arrange for one publication of the judgment at the defendant’s expense, limited to £1,000.
Source: Practical Law.