Pub wins football screening case

In a long-awaited judgement, referred by the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, the court ruled in favour of a British pub landlady, fined for televising Premier League football using a foreign satellite TV provider.
The ruling by the Luxembourg-based court threatens a massive shake-up in the sale by owners and marketing by broadcasters of sports programming.
"National legislation which prohibits the import, sale or use of foreign decoder cards is contrary to the freedom to provide services," the court said in a judgement.
It "cannot be justified either in the light of the objective of protecting intellectual property rights or by the objective of encouraging the public to attend football stadiums," it added.
It follows a case involving Karen Murphy, who runs The Red White & Blue pub in the Southsea area of Portsmouth on the southern English coast, and the English Premier League (EPL) over the broadcasting monopoly on live matches.
When Murphy took over the pub in 2004 she cancelled the license to show live EPL matches with British satellite broadcaster BSkyB and signed up with the Greek service Nova instead.
The EPL, which has sold the rights to show live matches to BSkyB and is by far the richest football league in the world, took her to court in England and she had to pay almost