Public viewing in Germany: Infront guidelines and the German Copyright Act.

AuthorBaars, Wiebke
PositionInfront Sports & Media AG
  1. Introduction

    The World Cup 2006 will be, next to the Winter Olympic Games, the world's greatest sporting event in 2006. Nearly 10 million football fans are expected to join the World Cup in Germany, but only 3,2 million of them have tickets to visit the games. (1) Fans without tickets will be able to enjoy the games in a communal live atmosphere by watching them on one of the big screens that will be found in nearly every city. Not only fans but also marketing divisions are looking forward to these so called public viewing events. They offer the chance to enjoy the economic fruits of the Football World Cup without being an official sponsor.

    These public viewing events are linked to the World Cup broadcasting rights. These have been acquired by Infront Sports & Media AG. Infront not only markets the transmission rights--assigned in Germany to broadcasting organisations ARD, ZDF, RTL and Premiere--but also licenses the public viewing rights.

    Infront and FIFA have agreed on guidelines concerning commercial as well as non-commercial public viewing events.

  2. The Infront / FIFA Guidelines

    The Public Viewing Guidelines, as announced in a press release by Infront on January 2005 (2), apply to both commercial and non-commercial public viewing events in Germany. They state that the organiser of each public viewing event is responsible for the technical organisation of the event as well as obtaining any necessary permissions from third parties, which Infront cannot grant (e.g. from Collecting Societies or for the use of public ground). The television signals must not be altered and there are additional rules with respect to the sale of food, drinks and other goods during the show, stating that it must be avoided to give the impression that the seller is in any way officially linked to FIFA. It is especially stressed that no logos or trademarks of FIFA must be used in connection with the events. Consequently, Infront requires all organisers of a public viewing event to contact them in order to arrange the formalities and to assure adherence to the guidelines. The public viewing enquiry form can be downloaded from the Infront homepage. (3)

    The most controversial aspect of these guidelines is the circumstances under which the organiser of a public viewing event needs to acquire a Licence from Infront with costs. According to the guidelines only commercial public events need to be licensed. Commercial events are considered to be events where an entrance...

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