Monday 14 October 2013

TV Caught Up - the High Court rules in favour of ITV



Following the decision last year of the ECJ in the ITV and others v TV CatchUp case,  the parties were back in the High Court last week, where an order was issued by Lord Justice Floyd, sitting as a Chancery Division judge, the result of which is that TV CatchUp has been required to withdraw all of the claimants' services from its mobile offering and all of them other than the main PSB channels (ITV1, Channel 4, Channel 5) on its fixed line internet service.

This decision was welcomed by the broadcasters who (according to the Guardian) stated;

"ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 welcome this decision. It is a significant vindication for this action that the judge has ruled 21 of our channels are to be removed from the TVC website. This result will help protect the substantial investment broadcasters make in content and is a clear message to those who seek to infringe our copyright or use our content in an illegal capacity."

Most interestingly, the judge declared that the legislation by virtue of which TV CatchUp could continue to relay the main PSB channels cannot be interpreted so as to be compatible with the Copyright Directive.  So the ball has been firmly placed into the Government's court to fix its incompatible legislation.

TV CatchUp is quoted in the Guardian piece as stating:

We pride ourselves in always working within the law, we accordingly felt it necessary to remove certain of the channels to avoid perpetuating contention.

Is "perpetuating contention" a new expression for "being in contempt of court"?

[declaration of interest - this blogger's firm advised the claimants in this case, although this blogger was not personally involved.]

1 comment:

  1. Can someone please explain how to read paragraph 3 of the Order alongside paragraph 4?

    ReplyDelete