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It's taking time but it's happening. A legal framework
for dealing with the rampant pirating of cable signals is
slowly falling into place.
Thursday's Delhi High Court ruling restraining as many
as 27 cable operators and networks across the country from
unauthorised telecast of today's Nat West Series final between
India and England (Sri Lanka was earlier eliminated from
the cricket triangular) marks the widening of the scope
as far as efforts to stop piracy is concerned.
The strictures apply to cable operators across six states
- Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan
and Haryana.
It needs noting though that the all encompassing order
issued by Justice Dr Mukundakam Sharma on Thursday was workable
because a common suit was filed by Multichoice Africa, a
DTH service provider in the Africa continent, Arab Digital
Distribution, a DTH service provider in the Middle East
and ESPN Software India. Super Sports is on the Multichoice
Africa platform, Pehla Plus and Fox Sports are on the Arab
Digital Distribution platform while ESPN and Star Sports
are distributed by ESPN Software.
The order has nipped in the bud the common tactic resorted
to by many rogue operators who used the DTH boxes meant
for use outside India and continue telecast of cricket matches.
During last month's Fifa World Cup Ten Sports could do nothing
despite a tough court ruling to cable ops and MSOs who were
capturing either a Russian feed or one from a far eastern
(Chinese?) broadcaster with English commentary being added
onto the telecast.
The order is in fact on the same lines as that obtained
by Ten Sports in its suit and allows for the appointment
of six local commissioners to be assisted by the local police
to search the premises of the cable operators and take into
custody all equipment which are or could be used for the
broadcast of the channels on the cable networks.
Rajeev Nayyar, an advocate in the high court who represents
ESPN Star Sports in the case was quoted as saying: "Our
contention was that these cable operators' contract with
ESPN Star Sports had come to an end long ago and despite
that they were telecasting the triangular series. Therefore,
all the three parties came together and filed a suit against
them."
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