Sky victory in first Scottish copyright case

On 11 October 2013 Sky sought and was awarded a court order in the Court of Session, Edinburgh, which prevents Daly and anyone acting on his behalf from infringing Sky’s copyright by showing Sky programming without the correct commercial licence.

Daly was ordered to pay £10,000 in damages, plus Sky’s legal costs, as well as fund the placing of notices in various newspapers and trade magazines advertising the ruling.

In addition a number of temporary injunctions have been awarded against several licence holders who are now subject to legal action.

Sky said it was taking action on contempt of court in a separate case. And it has obtained evidence that despite receiving an injunction, a further licensee and manager have continued to infringe Sky’s copyright and proceedings are in process for contempt of court.

Alison Dolan, deputy managing director at Sky Business, added: “This case demonstrates the seriousness of this issue through the large penalty applied, but also through the very first order to fund advertising, which we hope will help to warn pub landlords of the consequences of televising Sky’s content illegally.”

Despite repeated calls, the PMA was unable to contact Mark Daly for comment.

Sky has brought a number of actions in the Patents County Court in England against licensees who have been showing

Sky Sports without a valid commercial viewing agreement. In the first case Christopher Duarte, former licensee of the Crispin Inn, Chesterfield, agreed to undertake not to use unauthorised viewing cards or commit further infringements in future.