would suffer irreversible injury if rogue websites and applications continued to stream information without authorization.
Stadium for Cricket
The Delhi High Court has given JioStar an ex parte interim order to prevent rogue websites and mobile applications from broadcasting the current India-South Africa cricket series and the next India-New Zealand series in 2026.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the International Cricket Council (ICC) host a number of cricket matches, such as the current South Africa Tour of India 2025 and the forthcoming New Zealand series in 2026, for which JioStar claimed exclusive worldwide digital media rights and television rights.
However, the Court was informed that pirate websites and mobile applications were violating JioStar's exclusive rights by streaming its cricket broadcast without authorization.
In the November 11 ruling, Justice Tejas Karia noted that JioStar has invested a significant amount of money to get the unique right to broadcast cricket matches, and that piracy of its intellectual content poses a constant threat to JioStar and violates its exclusive rights.
The Court declared, "The fear of the unauthorized distribution, telecasting, or broadcasting of the Events on Defendants' Applications shall pose a significant threat to the Plaintiff's revenue streams undermining the value of the substantial investment made by the Plaintiff in acquiring the Exclusive Rights."
The Court further noted that as the broadcast content and comments are protected by the Copyright Act, such unapproved streaming results in copyright infringement.
"The Copyright Act completely protects the broadcast content, including video, commentary, and other composite elements. As a result, the judge said, "the unapproved use of these elements will also violate the copyright protections granted to the broadcast content under the Exclusive Rights."
Therefore, the Court determined that JioStar would suffer irreversible injury if an ex-parte ad-interim injunction was not granted at this point.
Given the live broadcast of the events, immediate temporary relief must be granted in this circumstance. Any delay in preventing access to the website or websites could result in irreversible violations of the plaintiff's exclusive rights and financial losses for JioStar. Thus, in this case, prompt action to stop the alleged infringements is essential," the Court stated.
The future South Africa Tour of India 2025 and New Zealand Tour of India 2026 were thus prohibited by the Court from being hosted, streamed, reproduced, distributed, or made available to the public through their websites or applications.
Additionally, the Court mandated that the eight domain names connected to the four businesses be blocked and suspended by the Domain Name Registrars.
Additionally, the Court ordered internet service providers and domain name registrars to suspend and block the infringing defendants' domain names within 72 hours.
Additionally, they were instructed to reveal all of the operators' details. behind it in four weeks.
The Court declared, "Such a relief is granted in the present matter as any delay in blocking the UI(s)/website(s) would, in fact, result in considerable pecuniary loss to the Plaintiff and result in irreparable violation of the Exclusive Rights of the Plaintiff [JioStar]."
The Court additionally stated that JioStar may notify internet service providers to restrict any additional apps or websites that are found to be unlawfully streaming and disseminating content over which it has exclusive rights.
The Court decided that the internet service providers would then have to immediately ban the same.
JioStar featured advocates Siddharth Chopra, Yatinder Garg, Priyansh Kohli, Ishi Singh, Shudhata Sudhir, and Manish Singh.
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