For years, Scots wondered if Andy Murray could win the big one.
The tennis star competed in the U.S. Open final Monday evening, but there was a problem for his compatriots unwilling to shell out for premium cable: they were unable to watch it.
Andrew Burns, the council leader of Scottish capital Edinburgh, perhaps took his civic duty a little too far when he tweeted out a link to a site hosting a pirated livestream of the event.
“If you are not watching the tennis, I would log on right now,” he told his 850 followers, before tweeting the link to the livestream.
Burns didn’t realize the site he linked to was of questionable legality at first, and didn’t apologize or delete the tweet until Wednesday afternoon, according to the Edinburgh Evening News.
Fortunately for him, though, he probably doesn’t have too much to worry about other than some egg on his face.
“It’s not an easy thing to ascertain whether there’s anything unlawful,” Duncan Spiers, a intellectual property and copyright law expert and Edinburgh Napier University lecturer, told the paper. “The police would not be the slightest bit interested in prosecuting someone linking to a pirate streaming site who are not making any financial gain.”
Steve Cardownie, deputy council leader, said the mistake wasn’t likely to impact on Burns’s Twitter career, adding that it was an out-of-character move.
Still, the ordeal seems to have been worth it for Burns, who stayed up late to watch Novak Djokovic hit a return long and Murray win his first Grand Slam title.
“Less than 5-hours sleep; work beckons sadly … but so glad I stayed up to watch Andy Murray win the US Open: what an unbelievable match :-),” he tweeted.
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