Horseracing pre-race data costs "baffling", says Racing Post
Industry newspaper insists bookie partners remain unaffected by on-going dispute as court date looms with Racecourse Data Company
Leading UK horseracing publication the Racing Post has labelled what it says is a near £600,000 increase in fees for pre-race data (PRD) as “baffling” and “depressing” as its publisher Centurycomm prepares to take the issue to court.
The increased costs come after the responsibility for licensing of data such as final fields, owners, trainers, jockeys and weights, was transferred to the recently formed Racecourse Data Company (RDC) “ a JV between Racecourse Media Group and Arena Racing Company “ from Racing Enterprises in February.
Following the handover, the RDC published a new rate card which detailed a new set of fees applicable to companies that use PRD for commercial purposes and resulted in a significant increase on the £150,000 yearly fee the Racing Post had paid previously.
The new rate card has been backed by 57 of the UK’s 58 racecourse, with only Towcester having refused to lend its support.
Increased costs
“The RDC is looking to charge us as much as £600,000 a year extra for the same service – that’s effectively a denial of service,” Bruce Millington, Racing Post editor, told eGaming Review.
After refusing to pay the new rate card fees, the Racing Post had its feed to RDC’s data turned off on 12 July, leaving the publication to source its information from elsewhere, a process it also followed prior to its original deal with Racing Enterprises in 2011.
However, RDC told eGR that it didn’t recognise the increased figure quoted by the Racing Post as the total price would depend on a number of different factors, although it did concede that it would have to pay an increased sum for its service.
“The Racing Post has not been paying a fee reflective of how their businesses extensively use data, so these charges are bringing them into line as to what RDC believes is a fair rate,” Seb Vance, a RDC spokesperson, said.
As well as supplying Betting Shop Editions to most betting shops in UK and Ireland, the Racing Post also provides B2B partners such as William Hill, Coral and Paddy Power with PRD feeds for betting purposes.
“We have a growing B2B division and none of our partners have encountered a disruption to their service because of this,” Millington said.
“We managed to service our customers with the data before our 2011 agreement with Racing Enterprise and as you would expect we are able to do so again and will continue to do so,” he added, although declined to reveal where it was now obtaining the information from.
Legal fight
The challenge for the Racing Post is to convince a Copyright Tribunal that PRD is not the intellectual property of the RDC and will attempt to do so at a hearing scheduled for September. According to Olswang lawyer David Zeffman, failure to do so could see the RDC shut down all alternative sources of data so that the Racing Post has little option but to accept the new rates.
The RDC confirmed it had been served with proceedings but insisted that it did “not assert that database rights or copyright subsist in the PDR” and has requested that the Racing Post drops its case.
“It came as a surprise given there was no pre-notification from, and the usual pre-action procedures were not followed by, Centurycomm Limited, despite RDC’s numerous attempts to engage,” Vance said.
“In addition, and for the aforementioned reasons, we have advised the Copyright Tribunal that it does not have any jurisdiction to hear a case on the matter,” he added.
As far as Millington is concerned, the new rate card is being used as disguise to raise extra revenues from the Racing Post and favour market competitors that have links to the RDC “ a claim the RDC strenuously denies.
“They are tied-in with our competitors such as At the Races and Racing UK so it’s not hard to see the motive behind it all,” Millington said.
“This is just an attempt to extract more money out of the Racing Post as it believes we were not paying a fair amount. It’s not like we just take the data and pass it on for an inflated fee “ we add additional value with our bespoke commentary and informative content,” he added.
RDC claimed the new rate card was not a revenue raising exercise and had been set up to “protect official partners, control integrity, lower the risk of piracy and enhance the value of PRD”.