Two items in last week's paper on the screening of Premiership football will have fanned the flames of resentment among licensees even further, I suspect.
The screening of "closed period" matches in the bar at Newcastle United's ground has got local licensees in a dither. The explanation is that the Football Association is allowed to make exceptions, within UEFA's rules, to the general restriction on showing live matches, so it is not a satellite or copyright issue as such, merely a relaxation on the general ban which is there to help maintain gate receipts for clubs. Newcastle United has clearly persuaded the FA that they are a special case. Otherwise, the ban on screenings applies to everyone.
Second is the letter from Colin McGhee of the People's Network Advocates (MA, 28 September, p19), which manages to bundle together this and other matters in a general diatribe against both Sky and the Premier League. As I said in a previous article, once again there is not one scrap of legal argument in any part of the letter which could justify breaking copyright. There is an implication, again, that this is a "grey area" of the law and that people have escaped conviction because it is not clear that they have broken the law.
That is not exactly what has happened. Those who have escaped conviction have done so entirely because the prosecution has, in a handful of cases, not been able to show dishonesty to the satisfaction of the judge - mainly because they thought that they had obtained a "licence" by paying the suppliers of the decoding equipment. Even in the case quoted by Mr McGhee, the judge went out of his way to indicate that his decision in no way affected the legal position on copyright, which he felt was entirely clear. The showing of Premiership football in any way other than in accordance with copyright permissions within the UK is illegal.
I am sure that lots of people wish that using decoders in this way was a loophole as it would mean they could avoids the need to pay the (high) Sky tariff - rather like wishing that all speed cameras were wrong and that not knowing who was driving would somehow be an escape route. But the law itself does not work in that way. Of course some people get away with murder. And Sky fees are a valid subject for debate. But treat the barrow boys with a degree of caution.