High Court sacks ESPN Star Sports' suit against news channels

High Court sacks ESPN Star Sports' suit against news channels

High Court

MUMBAI: Delhi High Court on Monday gives a major relief to news channels by dismissing a suit, filed by ESPN Star Sports again them for using footages from Indo-Australian cricket series.

The suit had sought a restrain on showing footages of the on going cricket series in programmes other than scheduled news bulletins.

"This suit is not maintainable and hence it is dismissed," Justice S Ravinder Bhatt said while dismissing the sports broadcaster's plea, reports PTI.

ESPN Star Sports had sought a restrain on using footages from matches played, and to be played, including the Tests, T-20 and One-day matches, in programmes other than scheduled news bulletins.

ESPN-Star had contended that the usage of footages in programmes other than scheduled news bulletins was in violation of ESPN Star Sport's terms and conditions which say that the footages could only be utilised in scheduled news bulletins for 30 seconds and for a total of two minutes per day, and that too with its permission.

The sports broadcaster had said that footages were being utilised for programmes of commercial purpose by carrying advertisements.

It had sought restrain against five news channels-- CNN-IBN and its sister channel IBN7, Aaj Tak, Star News, Zee News and NDTV 24X7.

When contacted by Indiantelevision.com, ESPN officials refused to give any comments.