Sky pulls trigger on Olympic rights legal action
"Inevitable" battle set to commence in High Court this afternoon.
Sky Television [NZX: SKT] is now reportedly seeking a court injunction over Fairfax NZ’s use of video from the Rio Olympics, a development NBR flagged as “inevitable” in last week’s print edition.
A week-and-a-half ago, Fairfax NZ and NZME received letters from Sky’s lawyers outlining allegations of intended copyright breaches and warning that a court injunction would be sought unless the companies agreed to abide by the IOC accreditation rules by August 1.
That deadline came and went; now the delayed battle is set to commence in the High Court this afternoon.
The nub of the issue is that the news access rules agreement offered to accredited media organisations by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) effectively trumps the fair dealing clause in the New Zealand Copyright Act 1994, which allows the use of others’ footage for purposes including criticism, review and reporting an event.
NZME, Fairfax NZ, TVNZ and MediaWorks initially tried to negotiate better terms from Sky, which had bought the official broadcast rights from the IOC.
Failing that, TVNZ and MediaWorks chose to live with the IOC’s news access rules and send accredited journalists, while merger-minded NZME and Fairfax elected to remain at home and rely on the Act’s ill-defined fair dealing clause.
Sky TV has been contacted for comment.
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Staff reporter
Wed, 10 Aug 2016
Wed, 10 Aug 2016
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Sky pulls trigger on Olympic rights legal action
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