Police operation in Mallorca against illegal showing of LaLiga football matches.

The police operation was in December 2019. | Alejandro Sepúlveda

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma19/11/2021 10:29
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Operation Themis was the name of the National Police action in 2019 against bars that were showing LaLiga football matches without having paid for the rights to do so. Fourteen bars across Mallorca were implicated, and the individual cases are now coming to court.

Two of these were heard in Palma on Thursday, and they both resulted in agreement between the defendants, the Prosecutor's Office and lawyers for LaLiga. In the case of a bar on C. Oms in Palma, the proprietor admitted having had a pirated signal through a decoder. Compensation of 800 euros had already been allocated, and in addition there is a fine of 480 euros.

At a bar in the Pere Garau district, the signal was legal, but no fee had been paid for showing matches in public. LaLiga put the damage at 305.94 euros, while the penalty for infringing intellectual property and consumer law was a fine of 750 euros.

The Prosecutor's Office has maintained that all fourteen cases were minor crimes and did not represent a breach of intellectual property. This is being considered on an individual basis, LaLiga arguing that football broadcasts have the same level of protection as creative works, such as films.