October 1, 2018

The claimant, Matchroom Boxing Ltd, applied to the High Court for an injunction to prevent streaming servers delivering infringing live streams of footage of its professional boxing matches.

Matchroom presented evidence of very large numbers of infringing streams having been watched for British boxer Anthony Joshua’s most recent fights, which deprived both Matchroom and Sky (which had exclusive licences to broadcast the footage) of substantial revenue.

Mr Justice Arnold referred to the five injunctions he had previously granted to Football Association Premier League Ltd (FAPL) and to UEFA in relation to the live streaming of Premier League and UEFA match footage (Football Association Premier League Ltd v British Telecommunications plc [2017] EWHC 480 (Ch)) and noted that the background to Matchroom’s application was very similar.

However, Arnold J said, the order sought by Matchroom differed in two main respects:

1. because of the irregular timing of Matchroom’s events it was not possible to identify the target servers in quite the same way; although the criteria were very similar, it involved a particular form of monitoring carried out during a seven-day period before each event;
2. whereas the FAPL and UEFA orders covered a season (or part of a season) and listed all the matches within the relevant period, this was not possible in this case since the boxing matches were not fixed sufficiently far in advance. Further, Matchroom sought an order to last two years, stating that events should be notified to the defendant ISPs at least four weeks in advance.

Despite the differences, Arnold J was satisfied that the court had jurisdiction to make the order and that it was appropriate to exercise his discretion to do so for essentially the same reasons he had given in UEFA v BT I.

In short, he said, the order was proportionate. It did not impair the rights of the defendant ISPs to carry on business. To the limited extent that it interfered with the rights of internet users to impart or receive information, the interference was justified by a legitimate aim, i.e. preventing infringement of Matchroom’s and Sky’s rights on a large scale, and it was proportionate to that aim: it would be effective and dissuasive and no equally effective but less onerous measures were available to Matchroom; it avoided creating barriers to legitimate trade; it was not unduly complicated or costly; and it contained safeguards against misuse. (Matchroom Boxing Ltd v British Telecommunications Plc [2018] EWHC 2443 (Ch) (20 September 2018) — to read the judgment in full, click here).