Nowadays IPRs form majority of the revenue generated by the sports industry. Copyright, trademark, right to publicise and patents have successfully integrated into sports, teams and players alike. They help to capture higher proceeds from fans.
The thing that generates the most is broadcasting rights. They help capture more audience and reach; broadcasting helps the millions of fans to watch the games without being actually present at the venue. More and more teams and leagues are entering into massive licensing agreements for this purpose, mostly the order of multi-billion dollar. A few examples include the English Premier League in England, the NBA & NASCAR in the US, and the IPL in India. The English Premier League broadcasting deal was signed at £1.782 billion for all EPL Clubs for 2010-2013.
For almost every club, the majority of the revenues are now generated from broadcasting right. The International Olympic Committee received c. $4b in television revenues for the 2010 & 2012 Olympic Games.
Since there is a tremendous market for sporting events, professional teams and athletes – it is quite apparent that this presents a great business opportunity and thus the industry has created intellectual property rights in Sports as well. First, the deal (or license agreement) is signed with the concerned sports authority at a cost often mounting to millions or in cases of broadcasting rights, billions. Subsequently the corporations pass on this cost to sports fans and thus recapture their investments.
It is clear that it makes financial and business sense to protect television or broadcasting rights. The proceeds from this are often used by teams to improve facilities, transfer players, pay their players, expand etc. However, a case can be also made of the fact that the sports industry is over-protecting the IPRs. As a result, the general public is deriving minimal from this practice – consumer has to pay higher fees for viewing these channels. There are websites which “illegally” broadcast these matches online, but these are subject to censure from the industry and a lot of effort is going into permanently banning these platforms.
IPR protection aims to protect the investment of authors/artists in their “creative” efforts so that they have an incentive to produce such work. Are sporting events “authored” work? Is it like a film, which follows a script (which could be unique and creative)? The IPR loving country, US, did not allow for copyright of live sporting events until 1976 when US Congress provided for protecting sporting events as long as it was recorded on film/videotape. In addition, instant replays, highlights, split screen shots, are now considered as “creativity” for the purpose of authorship.
Even media houses only are permitted to report only factual summaries of sporting events. However, if they show clippings of broadcasting or rebroadcast, it is considered copyright violation.
There have been numerous cases where online websites have been sued for broadcasting/ rebroadcasting. The EPL had sued YouTube for $1b in 2007 for deliberately encouraging copyright infringement on its website by allowing copyrighted content to be uploaded, in order to generate clicks and get traffic.
In the age of internet, the facilities of live streaming are ubiquitous. Sporting events are continually shown over the internet and draw instant copyright violation. I feel that the ability to control the venue of sporting events gives the owner sufficient grip over the broadcasting and acts as a valuable source of income. Various methods are used today to restrict alternative broadcast from the venue, for example encryption of broadcast signal. However, granting any further protection is totally unnecessary and unreasonable for the public at large.
Varun Thappa - Varun is pursuing his Masters from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, India. He is passionate about football and an ...
