Villa Kick Off Season v West Ham Away

The great fixture rip off continues!

If we wanted to publish fixtures on Vital Network Ltd it would cost us nearly £20 000 (with no commercial gain) or £200 ish per individual site + VAT.

These are OUR fixtures! The games that we readily advertise for our clubs who make much needed revenue from us giving free ticket information with no advertising costs.

And yet Dataco are still fighting the courts who have twice now ruled this charge not to be right.

See: www.bbc.co.uk

European Judges said: 'A football fixture list cannot be protected by copyright when its compilation is dictated by rules or constraints which leave no room for creative freedom."

The case was referred from the High Court in London to the European Court to "assess, in the light of the considerations set out by the [Luxembourg] court, whether the football fixture lists concerned are databases which satisfy the conditions of eligibility for copyright protection'.

The European judges added: 'However, the court adds that unless the procedures for creating the lists concerned as described by the national court are supplemented by elements reflecting originality in the selection or arrangement of the data contained in those lists, they do not suffice for those lists to be protected by the copyright laid down in the directive.'

However, the Premier League said there were elements of the case which indicated that football fixture lists were 'capable of database copyright protection'.

So the fight goes on.

So, for fixtures, go to the official site: http://www.avfc.co.uk/page/FixturesAndResults

The first game is away to West Ham, be a good trip that!

The first home game is v Everton.

And the one Paul Lambert might well have looked at is the home game v Norwich which is Oct 27th.

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.