see them La Liga matches in a public institution without paying royalties It is not a crime against intellectual property. Alicante Criminal Court acquitted the owner of a bar in Alicante taken to the bench by By the Prosecutor’s Office and those in charge of LaLiga, Privately prosecuting their organization for proposing parties to their clients Barcelona-Alavés on 21 December 2019 and its rights are exclusively owned by LaLiga TV Channel.
The accusation was the result of a major operation deployed in a significant part of the country’s geography following LaLiga Profesional’s complaint against the bars that broadcast these meetings. for not paying the copyright that he owns exclusively. In the city of Alicante, more than fifty natives took the stand, and some they were already punished. Now Justice overturned their verdict and began to acquit these predecessors. Football is not a literary, scientific and artistic work. and hence the giving of these matches it cannot be considered as copyright infringement and therefore there is no such crime.
The new sentences are the result of a Supreme Court decision last June, which Alicante judges relied on to issue these acquittals. A forensic case that leaves the charges behind between offside and a goal for the team. Forensic sources confirmed to this newspaper that complaints are now starting to be made as a result of the new Supreme Court doctrine. The decision of the Criminal Court of First Instance, to which this newspaper had access, was not finalized and it was possible to appeal to the Court against it. However, given the clarity of the Supreme Court decision, Neither the Prosecutor’s Office nor LaLiga appealed, so the verdict is already final.
private subscription
The incidents occurred in a bar in the center of Alicante on December 21, 2019. The owner of the establishment broadcasts Professional Football League matches for his customers using his exclusive subscription to Movistar, facts that the decision considers proven. Both the Prosecutor’s Office and LaLiga were seeking a fine for a crime against intellectual property, as they have argued in other cases brought for the same events. However, after the Supreme Court decision, the situation was reversed. In it, it was argued that broadcasting a football game is hardly a crime against intellectual property, because “Football is not literature. Neither is science.” says the Supreme Court. Therefore, “in a football match (any sporting event in general) sets of great aesthetic value can be formedbut interpreting these moments or sequences of technical perfection as notes of an artistic spectacle (…) “cannot be considered a crime against intellectual property.”A football match is not an artistic spectacle, but a sporting spectacle.defended in the decision.
Based on the same decision, Judge Alicante also concludes that “football is not literature” and that “whoever allows these sporting events to be watched at a public institution without paying royalties has not committed such a crime”. The reason for the bar manager’s acquittal. Defendant defended by his lawyer Mari Paz Giraldeztestified at the hearing that he used a privately contracted subscription to watch football matches at the venue. despite the situation fine demandedThere have been cases where the requested sentence was up to one year’s imprisonment.
During the trial, LaLiga’s lawyers had at least tried to punish the bar owner for allegedly manipulating the decoder. However, in this case, the judge crime will be prescribedsince the events occurred two years ago.
Supreme Court
The case before the Supreme Court was as follows: Few bars in the province of Valencia Those accused by LaLiga of providing pirated broadcasts of their matches on Movistar. The Valencia courts did not consider the events to be a crime against intellectual property, as the Prosecution and LaLiga allege, but a petty crime related to the market and consumers. Both charges were appealed until they reached the Supreme Court, whose reasoning was not given.
This New doctrine already applied in Alicante courtsIt was decided to file separate lawsuits against the organizations reported during the macro operation. police actions, December 2018 – December 2019 and most of the complaints were concentrated in: two courts of Alicante, five and eight, who sent them to try separately.
Two types of complaints
Sources from the prosecutor’s office noted that in their day the complaints were divided into two large blocs: illegal decoders to be able to offer these matches to their customers without paying any money; and on the other hand, those who use themExclusive subscriptions to different platforms to make a public distribution. The prosecutor’s office requested the file because the matches offered in some of the facilities examined coincided with the foreign leagues for which they did not have the audio-visual rights to be broadcast in Spain.
LaLiga is estimated at approx. The losses caused by these pirate emissions are 500 million euros. all over Spain. Customers watching football in the bar were potential spectators who didn’t pay to watch a game they were interested in.