The features of sports commentary as copyright protected work

Keywords: sports commentary, sport broadcast, broadcast, speech, creative activity The article analyses a sports commentary legal nature as a result of creative activityof sportscaster, and, correspondingly, the possibility of legal protection provisionfor such a commentary.Based on the analysis of multiple researches, devoted to sports commentary, and establishedpractice, the author determines that sports commentary can be seen as creativework that demands a significant level of knowledge from a sportscaster whose aimis to attract an audience to sports broadcast. Thereby, a high number of sports commentariesfeatured by unique author’s style and originality contains the signs of artistic workthat could be protected by copyright according to Berne Convention provisions. In general, such result of creative activity corresponds to speech as copyright protected work,since sports commentary combines an applying of material prepared and analysed in advanceand impromptu generating due to unpredictability of sports competition actions.At the same time, the author emphasizes the difference of legal approaches to settlementof disputes concerning sports commentary within legal frameworks in the USA, theEU, and Ukraine. In particular, the Supreme Court of Sweden denies to acknowledge thelevel of sports commentary originality enough for copyright protection. However, such aposition can hardly be considered as common regarding sports commentary, since it doesnot characterize the work of a sports commentator as in general due to the variety of approachescan be applied in this genre of sports journalism. Simultaneously, judiciary ofUkraine and US indirectly recognize a sportscaster work as a creative activity. Thus,even though sports commentary is not protected by copyright within existing legalframeworks, several judgements provides the way to solution of that discuss. Bearing inmind that for today a broadcast of sports events still has pretty inappropriate level oflegal protection to secure it from pirate activities, the protection of sports commentarycould prove another legal instrument aimed to strengthen sports broadcasting legal positionsand personal rights of sportscaster.