Star India today claimed that the Delhi High Court has prohibited telecom operators and Mobile value Added Service (MVAS) providers from misusing its exclusive rights over live updates on mobile of cricket matches involving India.
It said that the High Court reaffirmed Star India's exclusive digital rights to BCCI cricket matches on mobile and barred telecom operators from using match and score updates for commercial gains.
Star India said it has the exclusive media rights to cricket matches organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India until 2018.
It said in a release that the High Court had asked telecom operators and MVAS providers to either disseminate score updates with a lag of 15-minutes or pay a fair share of revenue generated through broadcast of live and contemporaneous scores to Star India by procuring a license.
"The honourable High Court has vindicated Star India's stand by passing this historic judgement. The lack of clarity was severely compromising the ability of rights owners to invest to create great experiences for sports fans," said Uday Shankar, CEO of Star India.
"This decisive verdict finally creates clarity on who owns the rights and a mechanism for monetisation and fair revenue share. For me, this is a huge boost to the entire digital and mobile space. Finally, we have a foundation on which to build great products as well as successful businesses and the biggest beneficiary will be the consumer," he said.
