High Court Confirms That Operators Of A Live Sports Indexing Website Infringe FAPL’s Copyright

Following high-profile injunctions awarded last year against the major ISPs requiring them to block access to peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing sites Newzbin2 and The Pirate Bay, in a new site blocking decision delivered on 16 July 2013 regarding the FirstRow website, the High Court confirmed that sites which provide access to copyright works through third party indexed links infringe rightsholders' copyright by communicating the works to the public.

Executive summary

FirstRow is an indexing and aggregation portal. A user of the website is presented with a list of links, organised by sport and time of day. Upon clicking on a link, the user is taken to a new page which features a "frame" in which a stream of a television broadcast of a sporting event appears accompanied by advertising. The High Court confirmed that the operators of FirstRow infringed FAPL's copyright by communicating copyright works to the public (or in the alternative by acting as joint tortfeasors with the parties that provide the links). Background

FirstRow is a website that serves as an index and portal to facilitate access to streams of televised sporting events. On FAPL's evidence, the website is extremely popular, with 9.98 million unique users in April 2013 and indicative annual advertising revenues of between £5.3m and £9.5m. Users of the website are able to stream a wide range of live sports including Premier League football matches.

The streams are supplied by third parties. Firstly, the third party streamer digitally captures a broadcast of a live sports event on his or her computer. Secondly, the streamer sends the captured images in real time to the server of a user generated content (UGC) site. Thirdly, the streamer creates an "embed code" through the UGC site which allows the stream to be embedded into other websites. Fourthly, the streamer submits the embed code to FirstRow and if accepted, the stream will be indexed as a link on the FirstRow website. Fifthly, a user can watch the stream by clicking on the link. Mr Justice Arnold noted three key points from the process: (i) it is likely that FirstRow only accepts embed codes from trusted streamers; (ii) none of the streams are provided by an official source; and (iii) FirstRow does not itself transmit any of the streams; they all emanate from the UGC sites.

The High Court accepted that copyright subsists in the following FAPL works in relation to live Premier League matches: action replays, the recorded "World...