NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has issued an order to restrain the unauthorised streaming of the reality television show “Bigg Boss”.
Hearing a suit filed by Viacom18 Media Private Ltd, the producer of the show, a bench of Justice Pratibha M. Singh recognised the enormous popularity of the programme and stated that the unauthorised dissemination of its content, regardless of past or future seasons, would infringe on Viacom18’s copyright over the broadcast and reproduction rights of the show.
The plaintiff alleged that various websites with “Bigg Boss” as part of their domain name were illegally broadcasting the programme without authorisation, causing financial harm to their business.
The court ordered the defendants to cease broadcasting, telecasting, streaming, retransmitting, and hosting any episode of the “Bigg Boss” that has already been telecast or is likely to be telecast in the near future.
It also noted that the proliferation of websites using the name “Bigg Boss” would promote piracy and unauthorised distribution, potentially causing substantial losses to the plaintiff.
The court directed the authorities to block the infringing websites and said that the potential impact on Viacom18’s subscription-based OTT platform, JioCinema, which could be jeopardised if illegal websites are allowed to telecast the programs in an unauthorised manner.