Only we can beam live cricket updates on mobile, says STAR India

In a judgment relating to mobile and wireless rights, the Delhi High Court prohibited telecom operators and mobile value-added service (MVAS) providers from exploiting STAR India's exclusive cricket media rights by providing live updates of matches, STAR India said today.

This is the first time, said Uday Shankar, CEO, STAR India, that such an order has come, which will lay the foundation on how the rights will be monetised on mobile platforms.

Earlier, the company had filed a case against Cricbuzz, On Mobile and Idea Cellular for providing live updates of matches. STAR India has exclusive media rights to cricket matches organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) until 2018.

In its order yesterday, the court reaffirmed STAR India's exclusive digital rights to BCCI cricket matches on the mobile space as well. It barred telecom operators from using match and score updates for commercial gains. It asked operators and MVAS providers to either disseminate score updates with a lag of 15 minutes or pay a fair share of the revenue generated through the broadcast of live scores to STAR India by procuring a licence.

"When we bid for the cricket rights last year, our idea was to create a homogenous, high-quality consumer experience. We had bid for all rights, including mobile and digital, where there was no monetisation. We pay Rs 50 lakh a match for digital rights, but haven't monetised these so far," Shankar said. He added the lack of clarity in this segment was compromising the ability of rights holders to invest in creating a great experience for sports fans. "This decisive verdict finally provides clarity on who owns the rights, the mechanism for monetisation and fair revenue share. For me, this is a huge boost to the entire digital and mobile space," Shankar said.

"It would be just and reasonable for the defendants to either obtain a licence and gain equal rights to their subscribers, or make them wait for some time, in order to not prejudice the right of the plaintiff (STAR India) to earn revenue from the match information," the court said, adding, "Those who do not obtain a licence from the plaintiff may not disseminate score updates or match alerts before 15 minutes from the moment such a score update or match alert is telecast or broadcasted by the plaintiff (STAR India)."