(Telecompaper) The European Commission has started a competition investigation into national film rights granted by US studios to EU pay-TV broadcasters. The rights are normally agreed for broadcast only in one country, preventing the pay-TV providers from offering the films or TV series to customers in other EU states. The EC said that this "absolute territorial protection" may constitute an infringement of EU antitrust rules that prohibit anti-competitive agreements. The decision to investigate follows a landmark ruling in 2011 by the EU Court of Justice over the right of a subscriber to BSkyB services in the UK to show Premier League football matches at her pub in Greece. The court found that there was no justification for the Premier League to limit broadcast rights to national boundaries, when the cost of the rights could just as easily be based on the full or potential audience of a satellite or online TV provider across EU states. The EU investigation will focus on major US film studios, including Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros, Sony Pictures, NBCUniversal and Paramount Pictures, and the largest European pay-TV broadcasters, such as BSkyB of the UK, Canal Plus of France, Sky Italia of Italy, Sky Deutschland of Germany and DTS of Spain.