Court Upholds Star India's Media Rights to Cricket Matches

By Dhanya Ann Thoppil

BANGALORE--An Indian court has upheld Star India Pvt. Ltd.'s exclusive digital rights to telecast cricket matches and barred mobile phone companies from offering live match updates to their subscribers for commercial gains.

The Delhi High Court Wednesday said telecom operators and providers of mobile content can offer updates of cricket scores with a lag of 15 minutes or by obtaining a license from Star, a copy of its ruling showed.

Star has the exclusive rights to telecast cricket matches organized by the Board of Control for Cricket in India between 2012 and 2018. It paid 35.81 billion rupees ($660 million) to get the rights in 2012.

Star is owned by News Corp., which also owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal and this newswire.

The company had filed three cases against Cricbuzz.com, an Internet portal tracking cricket, mobile phone company Idea Cellular Ltd. and mobile content provider OnMobile Global Ltd. last year, alleging that these companies violated its exclusive rights.

Executives of Cricbuzz and Idea Cellular weren't available for comments. A representative of OnMobile declined comment.

In the court, these companies argued that they publish the information only after it become public. They also argued that they neither copy Star's content nor provide access to any audio or visual footage of the broadcast.

The court observed that by offering live score updates, telecom operators and content providers are "enriching" themselves at the cost of Star.

The court has "vindicated" Star's stand by passing this judgment, the company said in a statement Thursday.

Star operates about 40 channels in eight languages in India.

Write to Dhanya Ann Thoppil at dhanya.thoppil@dowjones.com

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