High Court disposed of a suit filed by Sporta Technologies seeking a permanent injunction against defendants for infringing exclusive broadcasting rights of cricket matches.
Permanent injunction passed against defendant nos. 1 to 26 and 50 to 147 restraining them from making available content infringing plaintiff's broadcast rights.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
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SPORTA TECHNOLOGIES PVT. LTD. .....Plaintiff
Through: Mr. Prithvi Singh, Mr. Prithvi Gulati and Ms. Shilpi Sinha, Advocates.
versus
CRICHD AND ORS. .....Defendants
Through: None. CORAM: HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE MINI PUSHKARNA
O R D E R % 23.08.2024
I. Agreement with Cricket West Indies, Inc. (CWI), which is till 31st December, 2024. II. Agreement with European Cricket League AG (ECL AG), which agreement is till 31st December, 2029.
III. Agreement with New Zealand Cricket (Incorporated), which is till
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This is a digitally signed order. The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 31/08/2024 at 11:33:43
IV. Agreement with Malaysian Cricket Association, which is till 31st December, 2024.
V. Agreement with Afghanistan Cricket Board, which is till 31st December, 2027.
VI. Agreement with European Cricket League AG, which grants to the plaintiff exclusive rights to broadcast cricket matches from the European Cricket Championship, which is till 31st December, 2029.
VII. Agreement with Cricket Ireland for grant of broadcasting rights in Cricket Ireland’s domestic competitions, which is till 31st December, 2026. VIII. Broadcast license for Cricket Hong Kong in relation to domestic and international cricket matches organized by Cricket Hong Kong, which is till 30th November, 2026.
IX. Agreement with Pitch International LLP, granting to the plaintiff broadcasting rights in International Women’s matches organized by Cricket Ireland in Ireland, which agreement is till 31st August, 2026. 3. Learned counsel appearing for the plaintiff submits that initially the present suit was filed against the defendant nos. 1 to 26. Subsequently, upon application filed by the plaintiff vide order dated 14th September, 2022, defendant nos. 50 to 147 were impleaded. 4. Attention of this Court has been drawn to order dated 14th July, 2022, wherein, all the defendants were restrained from telecasting, broadcasting, streaming, or in any manner making available to the public any of the events covered by the plaintiff. The order dated 14th July, 2022 was extended to defendant nos. 50 to 147 vide order dated 14th September, 2022.
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This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 31/08/2024 at 11:33:43
proprietor of multi-sport aggregator platform called FanCode, through which the plaintiff offers content, merchandise and community engagement. The plaintiff’s FanCode platform streams variety of live sporting matches and events for which exclusive broadcasting rights have been acquired by the plaintiff by entering into various agreements with third parties, as noted herein above.
I. Decree of permanent injunction is passed in favour of the plaintiff and against defendant nos. 1 to 26 and 50 to 147, thereby, restraining the said defendants, their proprietor, partners, officers, servants, employees, and all others acting for and on their behalf, or anyone claiming through them in any manner, from making available to the public, any content which results in infringements of the plaintiff’s broadcast reproduction rights, as per the agreements as noted above.
II. Plaintiff is given liberty to bring to the notice of defendant nos. 40 to 48, any other third party website/URLs that may be subsequently identified by the plaintiff, as infringing its broadcast reproduction rights. In case any such other third party websites/URLs are brought to the notice of defendant
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This is a digitally signed order. The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 31/08/2024 at 11:33:43
nos. 40 to 48 by the plaintiff, then, defendant nos. 40 to 48 shall proceed to permanently block access to such other website/URLs.
III. Defendant no. 49 shall issue notification calling upon the various internet and telecom service providers registered under it, to block any third party websites/URLs, that may subsequently be identified by the plaintiff, as infringing its broadcast reproduction rights.
MINI PUSHKARNA, J
AUGUST 23, 2024 ak
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This is a digitally signed order.
The authenticity of the order can be re-verified from Delhi High Court Order Portal by scanning the QR code shown above. The Order is downloaded from the DHC Server on 31/08/2024 at 11:33:43
Sporta Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Crichd and Ors.
Mini Pushkarna
As recorded by the court registry
A suit of a commercial nature above the specified value, governed by the Commercial Courts Act 2015.
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