SPORTFLIX, the Netflix of Sports, is suspended for an alleged violation of IPRs

In the same way that Netflix changed the way of watching tv and films, Sportflix, a Mexican company with international partners, was intended to be a platform to provide sports events. Its launch was announced on 30^th August last. However, it was suspended on the 29^th by the Mexican Industrial Property Institute (IMPI).

On its website, the IMPI explains that following a complaint submitted through its piracy mailbox, the portal Sportflix.net was revised. After that, evidence of a possible violation of the Federal Copyright Law and the Mexican Industrial Property Law was found. This, because the content of the web apparently infringes some of the IPRs of the companies with the broadcasting rights to transmit the sports events found in the Sportflix web site, such as Televisa, TV Azteca, Fox Sports, ESPN, and Univisión.

As a consequence, a provisional measure consisting in suspending the launching of Sportflix was imposed, and a verification visit was communicated. Nonetheless, the verification visit scheduled for August 29^th could not be completed because the company´s staff opposed to it.

During an interview with the newspaper El Financiero, Carlos Martínez, the president of Fox Networks Group Latin America, expressed that Fox Sports and other sports content suppliers are waiting for the results of the investigation under development before issuing a complaint about the infraction of their IPRs.

For now, organisations such as the F1, the Fórmula E, the Mexican Football League, and the Champions League confirmed that they have no agreement with Sportflix for the broadcasting rights of the sports contents found on its portal. For its part, Sportflix announces on its web site that ‘before to provide a service in exchange for a subscription, the platform must go through the needed processes, so as to give sports streaming of the best quality.’ It is also affirmed that ‘the pre-register continues to be open’ after which a coupon will be received via email for a free day of access to the platform and the right to be ‘the first to know the date in which the service will be enabled.’

As it can be observed, in this case, the interests of the ‘traditional’ and the ‘new’ way to communicate tv shows, films and sports events to the public are combined. For this reason, it is relevant to know how this will end.

Post written by Florelia Vallejo Trujillo