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Business News/ Industry / Advertising/ Mobile firms allowed BCCI cricket match updates by Delhi court

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Mobile firms allowed BCCI cricket match updates by Delhi court

4 min read 05 Sep 2013, 05:46 PM IST

Khushboo Narayan , Gouri Shah

Court allows ball-by-ball updates of cricket matches to mobile phone users, refusing to grant relief to Star India

The high court was hearing an appeal filed by Idea Cellular and OnMobile against an earlier ad-interim injunction that had been granted to Star India by a single bench of the same court. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint (Ramesh Pathania/Mint) — The high court was hearing an appeal filed by Idea Cellular and OnMobile against an earlier ad-interim injunction that had been granted to Star India by a single bench of the same court. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint **(Ramesh Pathania/Mint)**

Mumbai: The Delhi high court in a recent ruling allowed ball-by-ball updates of cricket matches to mobile phone subscribers, refusing to grant relief to Star India Pvt. Ltd .

The high court was hearing an appeal filed by Idea Cellular Ltd and OnMobile Global Ltd against an earlier ad-interim injunction that had been granted to Star India by a single bench of the same court.

In a 75-page order passed on 30 August, a division bench of justices S. Ravindra Bhat and Najmi Waziri said, “Such an injunction would tend to insidiously, and in a creeping manner, denude the fundamental right to free speech and dissemination of topical information to members of the public."

The order was first reported by media website Medianama on Wednesday.

In October 2012, Star India had moved the court against CricBuzz.com, Idea Cellular and OnMobile Global for distributing minute-by-minute updates on cricket matches, contesting that it had “rights over all information emanating from cricketing events as the organizer and promoter of that sport in India".

The Board of Control for Cricket in India, or BCCI, the apex cricket body in India, supported Star India’s claim in the court. Following that, in March, the Delhi high court clamped down on phone companies providing live updates of cricket matches for which Star India had exclusive rights.

It said these companies could only provide scores with a 15-minute lag or licence them from Star, the Indian broadcasting arm of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

Star had said that in 2012 it had entered into a media rights agreement with BCCI that gave a “bouquet of rights" exclusively to it that included mobile rights and mobile activation rights. Star alleged that CricBuzz, Idea Cellular and OnMobile Global violated those rights as they had no licence from BCCI to disseminate match information.

Star India paid ₹ 3,851 crore in 2012 for exclusive media rights to cricket matches organized by BCCI until 2018. The rights cover all international cricket matches played in India as well as the domestic tournaments including the Ranji Trophy and the Irani Cup.

In all, Star has exclusive rights for 96 matches, including updates on the Internet and mobile phones. The deal doesn’t include the popular Indian Premier League (IPL), for which Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd holds exclusive rights.

Star India and BCCI argued that dissemination of match information through live score cards, match updates and score alerts through short messaging service (SMS) or mobile value added services (MVAS) by Idea and OnMobile “constituted unfair competition, commercial misappropriation or unjust commercial enrichment".

India’s MVAS market was worth ₹ 19,700 crore in 2011 and expected to grow at an average rate of 28% to reach ₹ 26,000 crore by 2012 and ₹ 33,280 crore by 2013, according to a 2012 report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India and IMRB International.

Over the past three years, average monthly spending on MVAS by mobile phone users had risen by ₹ 9 to ₹ 24 in 2012. Subjects such as astrology, Bollywood, cricket, caller ringback tones, ringtones and SMS updates dominated the market with a 63% share, the report said.

Idea Cellular and OnMobile Global have argued that they published match information only after it entered the public domain and this “amounted to news". Both the firms said their actions “did not amount to free-riding on the efforts of the plaintiff (Star India) as they did not copy the content of the broadcast or provide access to audio or visual footage of the broadcast".

The fresh high court order said, “In this case, the defendants (Idea Cellular, OnMobile Global) dissemination results purely from resources invested by them in this business, and in no way results from Star’s conduct or any expense incurred by it. Star’s acquisition of broadcast and related rights from BCCI, nor Star’s conduct in any manner, assists, let alone results, in the defendant’s gain."

Star India chief executive Uday Shankar , declined comment, stating he was out of the country and therefore not fully aware of the developments. Repeated attempts to reach Star India’s legal representative remained unsuccessful till the time of going to print.

“The honorable court ruled that the subject matter for live updates, which include scores, are facts and cannot be owned or otherwise protected," said Mouli Raman, co-founder and CEO of OnMobile.

“We are pleased with the outcome of this matter," said a spokesperson for CricBuzz.com in an email.

According to January data from comScore Inc., an Internet technology firm that provides analytics, Criccuzz.com had 2.3 million unique visitors who viewed 22 million pages, spending an average of 3.7 minutes per visit. In June 2012, a lean month for cricket, the number of unique visitors was 443,000.

While agreeing that people were increasingly using mobile phones for immediate news and cricket updates, Jehil Thakkar, a partner and head of the media and entertainment practice at KPMG India, said text alerts, the bone of contention, would cease to be in focus.

“As the emphasis on data goes up, the focus and demand for SMS alerts will only fall," he said, explaining that as the proliferation of smartphones increases, consumers will prefer using applications and going to websites through their mobiles for information.

Technology researcher Gartner Inc.in an October report forecast that by 2013, mobile phones would overtake personal computers as the most common Web-access device worldwide, and that by 2015, over 80% of the handsets sold in mature markets will be smartphones.

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Published: 05 Sep 2013, 02:24 PM IST

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Mobile firms allowed BCCI cricket match updates by Delhi court

Court allows ball-by-ball updates of cricket matches to mobile phone users, refusing to grant relief to Star India

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