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Inside Law: Live Sports Telecast and Piracy

Indian fans of the Argentinian football team reacted as striker Lionel Messi missed an opportunity to score during the match with Iran on June 21.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Two weeks into the 2014 World Cup, the Delhi High Court issued an order that changed the way the game is watched in India.

The court ordered that hundreds of websites illegally streaming the matches be blocked in India, the first time it acted to protect the rights of television channels to exclusively broadcast a program.

The stakes are clearly high. Channels pay millions of dollars upfront to secure rights to broadcast the tournament and depend on people watching to make their money back through advertising.

Normally, that is not a problem. ESPN paid $100 million for broadcast rights in the U.S. and its coverage has been breaking viewing records in that country. The game between the U.S. and Portugal was the most-viewed World Cup match in U.S. television history, according to ESPN.

Viewership in India was expected to hit around 100 million this year, up from 62 million during the last World Cup.

That should have been good news for Sony, which has the Indian broadcast rights for the 2014 and the 2018 World Cup. But it faced a stiff challenge to its exclusive rights from illegal streaming by websites.

With online streaming technology becoming cheaper, there are thousands of websites that have unofficial streams of football matches. This piracy reduces the number of eyeballs watching Sony’s broadcast, and as a result the amount of money Sony can earn from advertisers.

That is why the Delhi court’s order is so important.

The court recognized the exclusive right that Sony had to broadcast World Cup matches in India and ordered internet service providers to block these sites. It also directed the governmental agencies to ensure that the companies followed the court order.

The precedent set by this ruling gives companies a way to enforce their contractual and intellectual property rights.  It means that service providers are not just intermediaries between customers and the internet; they must also block content if so directed by a court.

If they fail to comply, then they could be in contempt of court.

Anish Dayal is a lawyer based in Delhi and practices at the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court. He works closely on policy and legislation and writes about law for India Real Time.


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