# Why it might be illegal to show Game of Thrones at your local bar



## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

From Gigaom:

*Why it might be illegal to show Game of Thrones at your local bar*


> The modish little bar at the corner of our street has a handsome side room that is wooden, warmly lit and welcoming. A sandwich board outside beckons passers-by to join them in watching the _Game of Thrones_ season premiere with a proper rye Manhattan, in the company of friends.
> 
> It's a throwback social network at a time when networks already solicit viewer participation through Twitter, Instagram, and otherwise. And it seems like the type of activity that a network would encourage.
> 
> But can you do that? I mean, is it legal to broadcast HBO in your bar? Or Netflix? Or the World Series? Surprisingly, it depends.


FULL ARTICLE HERE


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

Good info. Thanks.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Who doesn't know this already? I'm not speaking to Mark here for starting the thread... but to the people running the bar.

It's one thing to invite friends and family over to your house to watch your TV. That's all fair use stuff... but you can't charge people to come to your house and watch TV.

For a business, you are likely monetarily benefiting from a "Viewing party" by all the people who show up and stay several hours to watch and chat about a show... so you sell lots of drinks and food during that time... and since you are making money off the viewing party experience, you can't "share" your viewing in that way.

That's why they have business subscriptions to satellite and cable TV for bars and clubs and restaurants like this... so that you can pay for the permission to let your patrons watch stuff.


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

Is HBO even available to public viewing accounts? Every business lineup I see on DirecTV.com along with some other providers like Cablevision don't include HBO or any other premium movie channels outside of private viewing accounts like dorms and hotels.


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## slice1900 (Feb 14, 2013)

Yep, you can't get HBO on a public viewing account, which is the only one legal to show in a bar - though I'm not sure what you do if you want to show HBO's boxing matches (assuming there are still any sports fans under 60 who give a crap about boxing!) Maybe those are available on some sort of separate PPV.

The ones that are caught and end up paying six figure fines are using residential accounts to show NFLST, PPV and that sort of thing in the bar. BIG no no! I've never heard of anyone getting in trouble for showing the World Series on TVs larger than 55", or more than four at once. Maybe a decade or two ago when large TVs were rare, but if you built a place from scratch today I'm not sure you'd have ANY TVs under 55"!

I suppose theoretically I could run afoul of these rules since I'll show events via OTA on TVs larger than 55", and on more than four at once, but I'm also paying for both Directv and cable under the rules and prices for public viewing, both of which include those same locals so I'm really paying for them twice. Maybe I'm outside the letter of the law, but I look at it like driving 1 mph over the speed limit. Technically they could give you a ticket, but they'll never pull you over for that unless the real motive is checking to see if you're driving drunk.

Advertising "we have NFL Sunday Ticket" when you're using receivers you brought from home is like driving 40 mph over, you might get away with it for a bit but eventually you'll get caught and have the book thrown at you!


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## KyL416 (Nov 11, 2005)

slice1900 said:


> though I'm not sure what you do if you want to show HBO's boxing matches (assuming there are still any sports fans under 60 who give a crap about boxing!) Maybe those are available on some sort of separate PPV.


I'm not sure what cable does, but DirecTV puts HBO's Boxing events on a seperate commercial events PPV channel. (i.e. this Saturday's fight is listed on channel 574)


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## Laxguy (Dec 2, 2010)

slice1900 said:


> Advertising "we have NFL Sunday Ticket" when you're using receivers you brought from home is like driving 40 mph over, you might get away with it for a bit but eventually you'll get caught and have the book thrown at you!


Nice analogy! This and the others....


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