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Star India warns local pirates

September 26, 2017

By Chris Forrester

21st Century Fox-backed Star India paid a $2.55 billion fortune to secure exclusive coverage of India’s Premier League cricket matches. It also had the sense to secure those rights with a Supreme Court Order ruling forbidding re-transmission of cricket’s live feed by the national Doordarshan public broadcaster.

Now Star India is enforcing those rights with a ‘cease and desist’ letter addressed to the nation’s hundreds of cable operators and DTH players. “By this notice, private cable and satellite operators (Cable/ DTH I IPTV /HITS) are hereby cautioned to refrain from re-transmitting the live feed of the said series’ in violation of SIPL’s rights, directions of Prasar Bharati as contained in the scroll, and of the judgment,” Star said in the notice.

The Supreme Court Order, obtained in August, says the feeds: “cannot be re-transmitted by private cable and satellite operators (cable, DTH, IPTV or HITS) despite the fact that DD channels have to be mandatorily carried by all distribution platforms under the Cable TV Act.

There were many cases last week when this ruling was ignored.

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