EU negotiators agreed to "new rules that will allow European viewers to use online subscriptions to movies, sports and music when travelling around the European Union." An agreement was reached on Tuesday by European Parliament negotiators. Proposals were "initially put forward" in Dec. '15. It is the first agreement related to "the modernisation on EU copyright rules" as proposed by the Commission in the Digital Single Market strategy (BROADBAND TV NEWS, 2/8).
Five people in England have been arrested, accused of "selling set-top boxes modified to stream subscription football matches, television channels and films for free." The sale of so-called "fully loaded Kodi boxes" has been called a "top priority" by the Federation Against Copyright Theft. The five traders were arrested in early morning raids. F.A.C.T. said that it believed the suspects had made "in the region of" £250,000 ($313,000) selling the devices online (BBC, 2/8).
A mercantile court in the northern Spanish city of A Coruña "ordered popular Spanish p2p link site Roja Directa to cease all activities and pay damages to Telefonica's Movistar+ pay-TV service due to illegal streaming of copyrighted sporting content, above all live football matches." Spanish daily El País reported that the court accepted a complaint lodged by DTS, the broadcaster acquired by Telefonica in '15, against Roja Directa Owner Puerto 80 Projects (TELECOMPAPER, 2/8).
The SFR Group acquired the broadcast rights to the Diamond League through ’19. SFR already holds the rights to French athletics competitions. The channel will broadcast 13 of the 14 events of the Diamond League, with the exception of the Monaco meet, to which Canal+ owns the rights until ’20. SFR Sport, which succeeds beIN Sports as the competition’s broadcaster, starts its coverage on May 5 with the Doha meet. SFR Sport General Dir François Pesenti said, “SFR Sport wants to become the French athletic channel” (L’ÉQUIPE, 2/7).
