Delhi High Court restrains rogue websites from broadcasting Asia Cup matches

The Delhi High Court has restrained rogue websites from streaming and broadcasting the cricket matches of the upcoming Asia Cup [Star India Pvt Ltd v. MHDTV World & Ors).The tournament is set to start from Saturday and will continue till September 11. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are participating in the tournament..Justice Prathiba M Singh passed the order in a suit by Star India Private Limited and Novi Digital Entertainment Private Limited to restrain the illegal and unauthorised dissemination of the matches and its associated content.The Court was told that Star has acquired exclusive global rights for the telecast of the matches which includes online streaming as well..Justice Singh noted that past experience of various sporting events shows that such events are usually unauthorizedly broadcasted and streamed and these websites surface frequently on a periodic basis, as domain names can be registered with minor modifications, and the content of the website can be very easily moved from one website to the other.“…till the next date of hearing, the Defendant Nos. 1 to 11 and all others acting for or on their behalf, shall stand restrained from hosting, streaming, broadcasting, rebroadcasting, retransmitting or in any other manner communicating to the public, or disseminating to the public, any cricketing events, extracts, excerpts, highlights in relation to cricket matches relating to the Asia Cup 2022 commencing from 27th August, 2022 to 11th September, 2022,” the Court ordered..The Domain Name Registrars (DNRs) have also been directed to immediately block the domains of these websites and maintain status quo.The Department of Technology (DoT), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY), and Internet Service Providers have also been directed to block these websites.“The said blocking orders shall be issued by the DoT within 24 hours after service of this order. Pursuant to the said blocking order/s, all the ISP’s, i.e. Defendant nos. 19 – 27, shall block access to the URL’s, as also the mobile applications within 24 hours and shall not permit the download of these applications or the streaming of the rogue websites.”.Advocates Sidharth Chopra, Sneha Jain, Vriti Jindal and Akshay Maloo appeared for the plaintiff.None appeared for the respondents..[Read Order]