Federal Court Denies Telstra Damages Claim

[dimitri]

FEDERAL COURT DENIES TELSTRA DAMAGES CLAIM

Tue, 17/04/2007 - 08:32
Media | Australia | Broadcast | Law | Mobile | Rugby | TV Rights


In a landmark media case over rugby league media rights, an Australian Federal Court ruled that telecoms company Telstra cannot claim substantial damages from the pay-TV operator it claims is breaching its copyright.




Telstra acquired the National Rugby League’s internet rights in a six-year $90 million deal earlier this year. And it is seeking damages from the pay-TV operator Fox Sports over its use of replays of rugby league match highlights over the internet and mobile phones.
Telstra argued it will suffer substantial damages, including reduced traffic to its websites and loss of advertising revenues as a result of Fox Sports coverage. But the judge did not allow Telstra to include the wide-ranging damage claims.
However, he did allow the claim that Fox Sports' use of the footage would erode the advantage of Telstra spending $90 million for exclusive internet rights.

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[BroncoBuck]

Anyone with a legal background know what implications this may have for youtube videos?

 

[Bumble]

Good. Telstra can get farked.

 

[bulldog]

Some piss poor management to overlook internet and mobile tv rights in negotiations. Will we ever get some real business nous looking out for the game?

 

[perverse]

Good. Telstra can get farked.

ditto. no sympathy for those scumbags.

 

[yosh64]

We really need to be on tesltra's side this time. The result of this ruling is that the value of the NRL's internet rights are diminished. Meaning that there will be no hope in hell of getting $90m next time.
It means that any company can show more footage of games within 24hrs of the match. So why would anyone (telstra) pay to have the rights to showing as much footage as they like before that 24hrs is up. Its no longer exclusive to them.

In terms of youtube. Not much really. All footage is owned by PBL (nine) and without their approval youtube would be liable to damages (although i think there is a case in america on whether they are liable or not - no decision been handed down as yet though).

So if you want NRL to get more money and only be able to watch lots of footage at bigpond.com within 24hrs of the match you should support telstra.

If you dont care about NRL getting more money and want to be able to see highlights at any website within 24hrs of the match then you would support News and Fox sports

 

[Bumble]

We really need to be on tesltra's side this time. The result of this ruling is that the value of the NRL's internet rights are diminished. Meaning that there will be no hope in hell of getting $90m next time.
It means that any company can show more footage of games within 24hrs of the match. So why would anyone (telstra) pay to have the rights to showing as much footage as they like before that 24hrs is up. Its no longer exclusive to them.

In terms of youtube. Not much really. All footage is owned by PBL (nine) and without their approval youtube would be liable to damages (although i think there is a case in america on whether they are liable or not - no decision been handed down as yet though).

So if you want NRL to get more money and only be able to watch lots of footage at bigpond.com within 24hrs of the match you should support telstra.

If you dont care about NRL getting more money and want to be able to see highlights at any website within 24hrs of the match then you would support News and Fox sports

Yeah that's great...IF you have Bigpond. Which the majority of us don't.

 

[The_Savage_1]

Anyone with a legal background know what implications this may have for youtube videos?

http://esearch.fedcourt.gov.au/Esearch?p=show&data_type=file&data_key=NSD535/2007&search_type=matter_search

it doesnt look like all the details have been added yet, but they should soon (maybe tomorrow).

 

[Razor]

We really need to be on tesltra's side this time. The result of this ruling is that the value of the NRL's internet rights are diminished. Meaning that there will be no hope in hell of getting $90m next time.
It means that any company can show more footage of games within 24hrs of the match. So why would anyone (telstra) pay to have the rights to showing as much footage as they like before that 24hrs is up. Its no longer exclusive to them.

In terms of youtube. Not much really. All footage is owned by PBL (nine) and without their approval youtube would be liable to damages (although i think there is a case in america on whether they are liable or not - no decision been handed down as yet though).

So if you want NRL to get more money and only be able to watch lots of footage at bigpond.com within 24hrs of the match you should support telstra.

Only if you have BigPond. And since BigPond is one of the crappiest ISPs in Australia, it's not that good that BigPond should have the exclusive rights.

If Internode(by far the best ADSL provider) or Optus (by far the best cable Internet provider) had the exclusive rights, then it wouldn't be as bad, as both companies are good quality ISPs.

 

[Canard]

If you dont care about NRL getting more money and want to be able to see highlights at any website within 24hrs of the match then you would support News and Fox sports

On the flip side could the fact that its more readily available to all INCREASE its popularity and therefore ensure that the next TV contract is for even more.

 

[yosh64]

On the flip side could the fact that its more readily available to all INCREASE its popularity and therefore ensure that the next TV contract is for even more.

You dont need to have bigpond internet to access this stuff. Just go to the NRL website and search the video gallery. Each game or highlight package is just a link to the bigpond site. I dont have bigpond but i can still watch highlights or the full match. Mobiles are a different matter. You'd need a telstra phone to access this stuff. Not sure if its a problem if you wanna watch it within 24hrs of the match, ill try this weekend and see.

Not sure if it would increase its popularity as people still need to go to the effort of going to the site or downloading it onto their mobile. Sounds like something that only a league fan would do. Not someone just starting to get into league. Either way it wont affect the TV contract but it will affect the internet and mobile rights as thats what telstra paid for ($60m for the naming rights and $30m for the net rights).

 

[greenhat]

Last year NRL and AFL match replays were BigPond customers only, then suddenly, halfway through the season, anyone could watch it. There was no announcement or anything, so most people I imagine still think its BigPond only.

Getting their stupid streaming to work without chopping and crapping up is a whole other thing though.