Sky arent legally ripping me off at all. They provide a product i want to buy, so i buy it. I dont have to buy it, i choose to.

To be honest, i understand the hatred of murdoch, i dont understand the hatred of Sky, they do something very very well. Their sports coverage is second to none, they provide you with a huge amount of content that otherwise wouldnt be available and in pretty much every advancement in television in the last 30 years has been pushed forward by them, they shook up a stagnant and lazy industry.

Im a huge fan of the BBC, the natural history unit is the best in the world and should be a source of national pride. But they can;t and frankly shouldnt take some of the risks sky do.

Did you know that it wasnt until the 90's that Sky sports introduced a score bar in the top left hand corner of the a sports broadcast. The 19 bloody 90's! can you imagine watching any type of sporting event now, on any channel and there not being the time and score in the top corner? never mind HD and 3d, spidercam, ref cam, hell even having so may cameras at a game, never mind all that. The BBC and ITV were so stagnant in their sports coverage they didnt even bother to display the score.

A link to the judgement you describe, then. Shouldn't be a problem as you seem to know the case intimately.

And I'm not arguing that something technically is or isn't theft, I'm saying that in the hypothetical situation I have described, Sky would have to prove that neither my father or any member of his household was present at the time viewing took place. This would be impossible.

Im not sure one is available yet. It was heard by Lord Justice Laws and Judge Irwin.

As I said, I agree, they arent likely to prosecute and it would be a very difficult case to prove. Doesn’t make it legal though.

Ah, well let me know when it is as I feel the circumstances will be materially different to those I have described.

And whilst it may be illegal by the letter of the law, it's no more illegal than copying a music file to give to a mate or family member. Companies aren't bothered with piddly sh*t like that, they're bothered with people trying to rip off their products for commercial gain.

Its second to none in the UK maybe. Its second to plenty when compared to sports coverage in other countries, often provided at much cheaper prices.

This is the problem when one company is allowed to corner the market. Sky can pretty much charge what they want because there's no option of going elsewhere. They should never have been allowed to acquire BSB, but because Murdoch has the government of whatever day in his back pocket, it went through.

Sky is the best service, for sport, that you'll find anywhere in the world. If you think they're ripping us off you should see what the American & Australian networks get away with, you have to pay for something in one state, that those living there get for free.
Imagine having to pay for tonight's Exiles game, just because we're in Yorkshire and the game isn't.

You have entirely the option of going elsewhere. You have the option of going nowhere. The fact is if you want Sky’s product you pay sky’s prices. If you want a different product, you pay whatever that company charges. Its not Sky’s fault the other television companies sports offering is rubbish compared to theirs. Sky have built a successful business model out of an industry pretty much everyone in this country said would fail. They risked huge sums of money to do this and initially lost loads doing it.

Just because others are being ripped off more than us, does not make it ok.

As for sky sports, I don’t want to pay subsidies for other sports that I don’t give a fig about. I only want to pay and watch a selection of RL games.

Nobody has that product to sell.

It's a good job I never said it was then, isn't it?



So you want a channel that only shows RL then?

I really don't see the big deal here, Sky offer a product which you can either subscribe to or not, they're not forcing anyone to pay.

My Sports part of the package costs £22 per month, for that I get to watch 8 or so live SL games in HD and sometimes in 3D. That's less than £3 per game, add to that SL full time and Boots n All and I don't think that's bad at all.
Then when I combine it with the ICC champions trophy that I'll watch most of the games, the Lions tour of Australia, the US Open Golf, extraordinary coverage of the NFL and a 24 hour sports news channel. I think it's cheap. Then of course there's the Premier League. Bargain.

Why do you consider it a rip-off?


Then get a business plan together and pitch it to some investors. Because the only way you'll get anything like that is to front up and do it yourself.

Precisely.

Certainly in the US it used to be the opposite. Home NFL fans couldn't get live broadcasts, while the rest of the country could. This was to discourage non-attendance at games.

There's no reason something similar couldn't happen over here, although if Manchester United were playing, you'd only be able to watch them in Manchester with the rest of the country on delayed transmission

Not sure about the £3 per game. I work it out to be 22*12/8 = £33 per game.