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Delhi High Court restrains unauthorised broadcast of Bigg Boss

Sulaiman Umar
18 Oct, 2023
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The unauthorised streaming of the reality television show Bigg Boss, which is currently in its 17th season, has been restrained by the Delhi High Court. As per news agency PTI, the court also said that the mushrooming of websites illegally broadcasting its content would boost piracy, "causing heavy losses to the plaintiff".

What court said

As per the report, the court was dealing with a lawsuit filed by Viacom18 Media Private Limited, which owns the channel Colors TV, on which Bigg Boss airs. It said the programme enjoys "enormous popularity" and illegal dissemination of its content, irrespective of past and future seasons, would be an infringement of the plaintiff's copyright over the broadcast and reproduction rights of the show.

What plaintiff said

The plaintiff told the court that it airs the show in various formats, including in Hindi, on its television channels and OTT platform. However, several websites, with Bigg Boss as their domain name, broadcast the program in an unauthorised and non-licensed manner for viewing, which is going to make a monetary dent in its business.

"Accordingly, the defendant nos 1 to 5 are restrained from broadcasting, telecasting, streaming, retransmitting and hosting any episode of the Bigg Boss programme, which have already been telecast or which are likely to be telecast in the near future," said Justice Prathiba M Singh in a recent interim order.

"If any further websites with the name Bigg Boss are found by the plaintiff or any other websites which are telecasting illegally the programmes of the plaintiff, an application shall be filed impleading these websites.... The present injunction shall accordingly extend to those websites as well," the judge added.

What else did court say

The court observed that the plaintiff had made out a prima facie case for ex-parte injunction and it would suffer irreparable loss if the offending websites are not restrained. It also directed the authorities concerned to block the infringing websites.

The court further noted that the plaintiff's OTT platform, JioCinema, is a subscription-based platform and if the illegal websites are allowed to telecast these programmes in an unauthorised manner, the subscription base is likely to be jeopardised.

culled from Hindustan Times