England and Wales Cricket Board Ltd and another v Tixdaq Ltd and another [2016] EWHC 575 (Ch)
‘The claimants owned the copyrights in television broadcasts, and in films incorporated within such broadcasts, of most cricket matches played by the English cricket teams in England and Wales. The defendants operated a website and various mobile applications (“Apps”) which used screen capture technology to copy clips of broadcast footage of sporting events and uploaded those clips to the Apps. The defendants’ uploaded a considerable number of clips of broadcasts of cricket matches, lasting up to eight seconds, to the Apps where they could be viewed by users. Users could also upload clips, together with commentary, on to the website and the defendants’ social media accounts. The claimants brought a claim for damages, alleging uploading the clips prima facie constituted breaches of sections 16, 17 and/or 20 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. The 1988 Act did not require either broadcasts or films to be original in order for copyright to subsist in them. An issue arose as to the applicable test for substantiality in circumstances where there was no intellectual creation. The question went to both infringement, which required an act such as reproduction or communication to the public of the whole, or any “substantial part” of a work, and also to the applicability of the fair dealing defence in section 30(2) of the 1988 Act, on which the defendants relied.’
WLR Daily, 18th April 2016
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
