Copyright in sports

The sports industry is a business that ranges from the sale of food and sports souvenirs to the sale of broadcasting rights and sponsorship agreements. In this sense, individual athletes and clubs get to use external elements that increase their positioning in the sports industry and even socially.

According to Research and Markets, the sports industry was worth about $388 billion in 2020. The market had a 15% decrease from 2019 to 2020 and is estimated to reach $600 billion by 2025 and $826 billion by 2030.

As mentioned above, the sports industry and the music industry are closely linked. It is common to watch different teams or individual athletes accompanying the sports in which they participate with some musical works or on some occasions of some other type.

There are even musical works developed by the most prestigious composers and performed by the most popular artists in favor of sports clubs, but there are also some clubs or athletes that accompany their presentations with an existing musical work, for example, this is the case of figure skating in which an artist performs his presentation accompanied by a musical work that becomes a fundamental part of his presentation.

However, it is essential to bear in mind that any work, and in this case musical works, are protected from the moment of their creation and the rights belong to their creator or to whoever contracts their creation through a figure known as work for hire. For this reason, every time any person, in this case sportsmen or sports clubs want to use a musical work to accompany their sports performances, they must have the authorization of the holder of the economic rights over the musical work. This regardless of the purpose for which it is intended, i.e., it does not matter if the musical work is part of the skating routine of an athlete in the Olympic Games or is the “anthem” with which a soccer team enters the field to play the UEFA Champions League, in any case, they must have the corresponding rights and authorizations of the holder of the economic rights over the work in question.

Therefore, there are several companies and parties involved in the sports industry, either developing new products for elite athletes, sponsoring young athletes who promise to become the idols of the future. Or companies that want to associate their brands with athletes through advertising campaigns, linking the quality of the product protected by the brand with the image and values that the athlete represents. All these companies know or should know that they cannot use a work without the corresponding rights, we insist, regardless of whether the purpose is praiseworthy in their eyes or whether they consider the forum “too small” to ask for authorization.

In any case, the owner of the economic rights over the work may request the removal of his work from such presentation and/or claim damages, a clear example is the lawsuit of Heavy Young Heathens against the figure skaters Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier, as well as NBC for using and broadcasting without their authorization the song “The House of the Rising Sun” in the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games, a presentation in which the skaters won a silver medal for the United States.

In addition, it is important to note that, although sport has an international character, it depends on national legislation on intellectual property issues. In most countries, and in accordance with the provisions of the Berne Convention, copyright protection is obtained automatically without the need for registration or other formalities. However, in most countries there is a system of registration of works that facilitates clarifications in case of disputes. In the case of Mexico, the registration of works is done through an application to the Public Registry of Copyrights.

Therefore, it is essential that athletes, sports clubs, event organizers and the media seek legal advice to avoid falling into illegal acts and respect the legal rights associated with musical works.