Roja Directa is a website frequented by football fans who want to watch matches on the Internet without having to subscribe to any platform, or pay to watch them . The page contains links that allow you to enjoy various content related to football, which are broadcast in other countries. This does not like companies like Audiovisual Sport , which have the rights to exploit these sporting events in Spain.
Audiovisual Sport manages and exploits the audiovisual rights of the Football League and the Copa del Rey (except the Final). This company filed a complaint against those responsible for Roja Directa , which a Madrid Investigative Court agreed to file in July 2009 . However, Audiovisual Sport appealed that decision of the courts on appeal. Now it has just been known that the Provincial Court of Madrid has confirmed the dismissal of the appeal, and has once again established that linking is not a crime .
The members of the court had to analyze whether there was an act of public communication of works protected by the Intellectual Property law without the authorization of its owner ( Audiovisual Sport ) in the case of the Roja Directa website . The resolution of the Provincial Court of Madrid, which dismisses the appeal, indicates that such an act did not exist, because Roja Directa does not host the files , nor does it directly download. Nor can the organization and announcement of the parties be classified as public communication without authorization.
In addition, according to the judges, the advertising revenue received by those in charge of Roja Directa derive from generic access to the page and can occur even if there is no download. Lastly, the courts took into account that those responsible for Roja Directa do not facilitate the unprotection of key codes for viewing sporting events, nor do they make connections with unprotected programs, but only facilitate the viewing of television programs broadcast in open air . For this lawsuit, Roja Directa has had the legal representation of Bufet Almeida .