The division bench of the Delhi High Court has set aside an order by the single judge of the same court, which gave STAR rights (albeit limited rights) over Cricket Scores and introduced the "Hot News" concept to India, wherein the STAR, via the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), from which it had licensed rights, had been given exclusive rights to report information via mobile for a certain period of time, while the news was still "hot". The court has held that 'the plaintiffs claim for ad interim injunction on all counts, i.e. ownership of facts based on the “hot news” principle and the claims for unfair competition and unjust enrichment cannot be granted. Prima facie, it is also held that claims so made are statutorily precluded. Consequently, the impugned judgment and order of the learned Single Judge has to be and is set aside.' So, as things stand today, mobile operators, content aggregators and other entities are free to provide SMS alerts and ball by ball commentary. A critical statement in the judgment is that 'Neither Star nor BCCI can be permitted to say that mentioning "mobile" rights and auctioning them, would ipso facto legitimize the parcelling away of right to disseminate information, without first establishing that the right or exclusive domain over such rights existed in the first instance." Essentially, this means that before you license rights, you should first establish that they exist. STAR had taken online Cricket site Cricbuzz, mobile VAS major OnMobile…
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