News channels may now be able to telecast footage of international cricket matches for longer durations, following the Delhi High Court's dismissal of a petition by sports broadcaster ESPN Star Sports in this matter. |
ESPN Star had sought the court's direction to restrain various television news channels from airing footage of the ongoing India-Australia series without its permission, specially the footage of the second Test match that was mired by allegations of racism against cricketer Harbhajan Singh. |
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ESPN alleged that the news channels were running special shows on the cricket matches with excessive use of their footage and running commercials on these shows, thus earning considerable revenue. |
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The news channels, including CNN-IBN, IBN7, Aaj Tak, Star News, Zee News and NDTV 24X7, that were made a party in the case, contested that reporting on news events emerging out of cricket was the responsibility of news channels. |
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"The Copyright Act itself provides that reporting of current events does not constitute copyright infringement. The law therefore clearly grants a right to report current events even if rights to such events are vested with some one else," the news channels said in their defense. |
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According to the terms and conditions of ESPN, news channels are allowed to telecast cricket footage for only 30 seconds in a scheduled news bulletins and a total of 120 seconds of such footage a day. Any additional airing of the footage will not be without the consent of the sports broadcaster. |
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This move is likely to help news channels to show footage of international cricket matches for more than two minutes a day and run news stories on events involving cricketers in these matches. |
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When contacted, a senior ESPN executive said that the company was studying the Delhi High Court order and had no further comments to make in matter. |
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A senior Zee TV official who was representing Zee News in the case said, "Our case held on two accounts. One, the Harbhajan issue was a national issue and extended coverage of this was out of mass news interest. Second, Channel 9 of Australia is the producer of all cricket telecasts in Australia, and therefore should be made a party to the case. In the absence of their involvement, there was not much in the case." |
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ESPN had cited the example of Zee News which generated a programme titled 'Bucknor Tune Kya Kiya'. According to ESPN, the show unauthorisedly utilised 18 minutes 37 seconds of footage of the Test matches. |
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Other channels also aired similar programmes and ran advertisements during the programmes, which was a clear violation of ESPN's terms and conditions, the sports broadcaster said in its petition. |
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