According to expert analysis, the copyright specification of Chinese sports events has ushered in an opportunity, and the copyright holder may become the biggest beneficiary.
Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, April 9th a few days ago, “the copyright case of broadcasting football matches in the live broadcast room without permission” was sentenced in Shanghai in the first instance. According to expert analysis, the copyright specification of Chinese sports events has ushered in an opportunity, and the copyright holder may become the biggest beneficiary.
In the judgment on the 8th, the court determined that the football match program passed the setting of seats, the capture, switching and connection of shots, the playback of slow motion, the shaping of stories, etc, it fully reflects the creator’s selection, editing and processing of continuous pictures under the control of his will, highlights the personality factors in the process of program production, and belongs to the “original expression” in the field of literature and art “, and it meets the requirements of fixity, and can be protected as a kind of film works stipulated by copyright law.
The Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of intellectual property rights issued at the end of 2019 clearly put forward: “Study and strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights in the broadcast of sports events.” This sentence is the first time to make a breakthrough in determining the nature of live sports events. However, in similar lawsuits before, different courts basically tended to determine that live broadcast of sports events was not a work.
“The broadcasting of sports events is similar to film production, which also has certain originality and should be applied to copyright protection. Because during live sports events, although the position of each camera is fixed, the choice of shooting angle and the switching of pictures still include the creation of photographers and directors.” Guo Chenhui, director of intellectual property department of PP Sports Legal Center, introduced.
However, Yuan Xiuting, a professor of Tongji University Law School, thinks: “There is no complete content creation in the broadcast of sports events, and it is still difficult to be included in the scope of copyright law protection, but it can be protected through other channels. If infringement can be regarded as unfair competition to protect the broadcasting rights of sports events.”
For a long time, the phenomenon of copyright infringement and piracy has been serious. According to PP Sports, only in 2019, 278900 links were monitored and 224 lawsuits were filed, and there were many platforms with great influence in China. Official data show that the misbroadcasting brought at least 1 million pounds of loss to the Premier League club every game, and Spanish league officials believed that the misbroadcasting caused more than 0.4 billion dollars a year. Although there is no relevant data disclosure in our country at present, generally speaking, the income of live broadcast and broadcast rights accounts for more than 40% of the income of related events.
In this regard, Zhao Kefeng, partner of Anjie Law Firm, said: “I hope more new technologies will not be used to provide support for piracy, and I hope to give rights holders appropriate protection, let rights holders have a better space for innovation.”
Under this background, more and more leading enterprises in the industry have begun to actively explore. PP Sports, which owns the copyright of live broadcast of many events, has always called for the protection of intellectual property rights of live broadcast of events, and said it would be conducive to promoting the healthy development of the sports industry.