TONY JONES, PRESENTER: A win for consumers, or a looming disaster for the nation's biggest sports?

This afternoon, Optus won a landmark copyright case against the National Rugby League, the AFL and Telstra.

It means Optus can continue to show sports online and on mobile phones, well, almost in real time.

Amy Bainbridge reports.

AMY BAINBRIDGE, REPORTER: Watching sports is big business. The AFL sells the copyright to its matches to free-to-air and pay TV, as well as the live online streaming rights to Telstra.

The latest Telstra deal is worth $153 million. The value of that deal has been thrown into question.

At the centre of this dispute is the Optus TV Now service, which allows customers to record free-to-air TV from their phone or computer and watch it as soon as two minutes after the initial broadcast.

CLARE GILL, OPTUS SPOKESWOMAN: This has been a win for Australians, for innovation and for the law. This is a product similar to things that you can do today. So we see this no different from any other personal video recording device.

CRAIG MIDDLETON, TELSTRA SPOKESMAN: Well this isn't an ultimate win and the judge has obviously flagged that by making a full court appeal available as an option. We're gonna go away and consider that option.

AMY BAINBRIDGE: The Federal Court found that because individuals were making a recording for private use to watch at a convenient time that TV Now did not infringe copyright laws. The judge stressed that who was making the recording was significant and it was the individual, not Optus.

STEVEN RARES, FEDERAL COURT: Even though Optus provided all the significant technology for making, keeping and playing the recording, I considered that in substance this was no different to a person using equipment or technology in his or her own home or elsewhere to copy or record a broadcast. I noted that a similar result had been reached by appeal courts in the United States and Singapore.

MARK MCDONNELL, TELCO ANALYST, BBY: Well it's a victory in round one for Optus, and I say round one because I think it will be appealed and this is ultimately of such commercial significance that a judgment from a single judge is unlikely to be accepted without further testing.

AMY BAINBRIDGE: With the new AFL season imminent, this judgment means Telstra has paid millions for a deal with the AFL that's not actually buying exclusive rights and the NRL is negotiating its new broadcast rights package, tipped to be over $1 billion, to begin next year. But the implications flow beyond football.

MARK MCDONNELL: Frankly, this could go all the way through all of the sporting codes. I've already touched on the cricket; I mean, there's the V8 Supercars, there's the Olympic Games, there's a whole range of high value sports events that potentially play out as a result of a landmark case such as this.

PETER COX, MEDIA ANALYST: The internet and mobile phones are now really essential components for sport in the future. If the revenue is reduced on those, that will affect the expansion into the western suburbs for Sydney for example in AFL. This is a great threat to the sporting codes.

AMY BAINBRIDGE: And some believe Australia's copyright laws have failed to keep pace with the rapidly changing media environment.

PETER COX: It is certainly a case where the laws need to be updated to meet the modern technology that's available today and the changing marketplace at the same time.

CLARE GILL: The 2006 amendments in the Copyright Act allowed for these type of innovations. Technology is changing and that's what we're allowing. It's about recording free-to-air television and playing it back at a time more convenient. It's simply a personal video recording device, as is available today.

AMY BAINBRIDGE: The AFL, NRL and Telstra have been ordered to pay Optus's court costs. Both football codes have released statements saying they're likely to appeal the decision and the AFL maintains Optus Now is a breach of copyright.

Amy Bainbridge, Lateline.