Australian government gets involved in sports broadcasting row

Feb 12, 2012, 4:13 GMT

Sydney - The Australian government is looking at legislation that would protect the exclusivity of sports broadcast rights, an official said Sunday.

In court last week the Australian Football League lost its bid to prevent phone company SingTel Optus Pty Ltd from recording matches broadcast on free-to-air television and replaying them to mobile phone customers with a short delay of around 2 minutes.

Sports Minister Mark Arbib said the attorney general was looking at options to protect exclusivity because the ruling would damage the income stream of the league and similar sports franchises.

'In the end, if this court case stands, then the revenues will take a big hit,' Arbib said.

Optus rival Telstra Corp paid the league 153 million Australian dollars (163 million US dollars) for online and mobile phone rights for 5 years.

The league is appealing the court decision, with the case to be heard in April.

The league will argue that Justice Steven Rares was wrong in drawing a parallel with viewers who do not violate copyright if they recorde free-to-air television programmes for viewing later.

'The judge erred in finding that the service that Optus TV Now offers the user is substantially no different from a VCR (video cassette recorder) or DVR (digital video recorder),' the league said in its appeal filing.