By Sportingintelligence

24 February 2012

Portsmouth landlady Karen Murphy has had her conviction for showing Premier League games with a foreign decoder overturned. Reports here and here.

But she is no closer to her original objective of being allowed to show live Premier League games in her pub using a foreign decoder.

The Premier League have released the following statement in relation to the case:

Premier League Statement – Karen Murphy

Following the news that Karen Murphy’s appeal to the High Court has seen her conviction overturned, the Premier League would like to make clear that this decision does not change the outcome of the QC Leisure foreign satellite case.

In that judgment (QC Leisure), made on 3 February 2012, Lord Justice Kitchin was consistent with the ECJ ruling and made it clear that the law gives us the right to prevent the unauthorised use of our copyrights in pubs and clubs when they are communicated to the public without our authority.

That unauthorised use gives rise to both civil and criminal penalties. Therefore should Mrs Murphy, or any other publican, use European Economic Area foreign satellite systems to show Premier League football on their premises without our authority and outside the scope of our authorisation, they make themselves liable for us to take action against them in both the civil and criminal courts.

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Murphy’s law: why the Sky isn’t about to fall in on the Premier League

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