The plaintiff's failure to disclose the entire license agreement and the unfeasibility of supervising the injunction sought were crucial factors in the court's decision. Additionally, the non-impleadment of the owner of the copyright and mis-joinder of a necessary party rendered the suit not maintainable.

JUDGMENT :

S. Ravindra Bhat, J.

IA No. 1469/2008 (Under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 CPC)

1. The plaintiff has sought permanent injunction against the defendants to restrain them from utilizing the footage of plaintiff, in the matches played, and to be played during the India-Australia test matches, 2020 series and the tri-series One day internationals involving Sri Lanka, India and Australia, without obtaining its prior permission and in violation of the plaintiff's terms and conditions and from utilizing the footage from the television for any television programme, except for regularly scheduled news bulletin, in excess of 30 seconds per bulletin and a total of two minutes per day and from carrying any advertisements before, during and after such footage. An ad-interim injunction to the same effect has also been sought.

2. The plaintiff, ESPN Star Sports is a general partnership under the laws of the State of Delaware, United States of America. Its beneficial owners are Star Group Limited (50%) and ESPN, Inc (50%). The latter is a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Group. The plaintiff has its office in Singapore; it is engaged in the production and the telecasting of sports channels under the name of ESPN, STAR Sports and STAR Cricket (referred to as 'Channels') among others, in India. It's principal production facility is located in Singapore. It broadcasts 12 channels from that facility to about 26 countries. It claims to have the services of 35 dedicated, fulltime, award winning professionals. It retains three dedicated leased satellite lines from London. The plaintiff has engaged the services of world class cricket commentators. It creates live feed by deploying the range of 18-26 cameras on the ground apart from software such as Hawk eye, Snickometer, virtual spectator and super slow motion etc.

3. The plaintiff avers that it has obtained the sole and exclusive rights/license from various sports bodies including but not limited to Cricket Australia to televise sporting events including the India versus Australia cricket test matches, One Day International (ODI) matches and the solitary T20 cricket match to be played in Australia from December 26, 2007 onwards till March 8, 2008 (hereafter referred as the 'Cricket Matches'). Therefore, no other person or entity can broadcast/telecast those cricket matches in India without license from the plaintiff or its sole and exclusive distributor ESPN Software India Private Limited.

4. That Defendant No. 1, Global Broadcast News Limited, is a Broadcaster having a number of news channels by the name of 'CNN-IBN' and 'IBN7'. The Defendant No. 2, TV Today Network Pvt. Ltd., is a Broadcaster which has news channels by the name of 'Aaj Tak' and 'Headlines Today'. The Defendant No. 3, Media Content and Communications Services India Pvt. Ltd., is a Broadcaster having a news channel by the name of 'STAR news'. Defendant No. 4, Zee News Ltd., is a Broadcaster having a news channel by the name of 'Zee News'. Defendant No. 5, New Delhi Television Ltd, is a news Channel by the name of 'NDTV 247'.

5. The plaintiff avers that it entered into an exclusive license Agreement dated 26th July 2002 (valid for the period 1st May 2002 to 30th April, 2008) with Cricket Australia (CA) whereby the former was granted exclusive rights to make live and/or delayed and/or pay broadcasts of feeds of the cricket matches by terrestrial television, cable television and/or satellite television in India and other specified countries. The cricket matches started at Melbourne, Australia from December 26, 2007 and the test matches got over on January 28, 2008. The Twenty20 cricket match and the ODIs would continue till March 8, 2008. It is claimed that after the cricket matches began, the plaintiff's distributor's field staff, in various locations noticed that the Defendants were unauthorizedly telecasting the signals of such matches, which was inconsistent with their primary obligation of being news based channels(s), beaming news bull