As the Supreme Court of India noted in its landmark judgment pertaining to the broadcast media, ‘the airwaves’ are ‘public property’. Their use has to be controlled and regulated by a public authority in the interests of the public and to prevent the invasion of their rights. Obviously the only legitimate role for the state in this regard is that of trustees for the public. It is surprising to see a government organization enforcing its rights so aggressively. India’s national broadcaster ‘Doordarshan’ having taken a strong objection to private news channels using the unauthorized recording of the Beijing Olympics 2008. Prasar Bharti has obtained an order from the Delhi High Court that restrains all private news channels from sharing Doordarshan’s footage of the Beijing Olympics, unless they enter into a commercial agreement with Prasar Bharati and the Indian Olympics Association. Then they issued a letter to all private broadcasting organizations states that their sole rights over the broadcasting of the Beijing Olympics, and anyone interested of showing it on their channel needs to make an agreement with us.
Prasar Bharati filed a complaint against private news channels before the Delhi High Court on August 22, 2008 for “encroaching” on exclusive broadcast rights to the Beijing Olympics 2008 . They paid around $3 million for getting the exclusive broadcasting right to the Olympics Association. The only way of to recover this investment is the sale of advertising spots, and the sale of footage to other broadcasters. They argue footage beamed by other news channels damages these viable interests. So the national broadcaster is set to claim damages of around Rs 5 crore from over a dozen news channels for illegal usage of footage. Several news channels have been using the live telecast especially in the last few days of Olympics; it includes the games involved by Indian participants Abhinav Bindra (shooting), Sushil Kumar (wrestling), Vijender Kumar (boxing), Saina Nehwal (badminton) and Anju Bobby George (athletics).
The private news channels for their part can argue the “fair dealing” exception under section 52 of Indian Copyright Act which allows for the use of copyrighted material for the purpose of reporting current events. It is most likely that the news channels will get away with breaching the guidelines, while broadcasting more than 10 seconds of the medal winning matches, by citing public interest; however, there will still be hell to pay for broadcasting the spectacular opening ceremony which was one of the most viewed events in the world. The same stands true if any news channel was broadcasting entire events.
They also argue in the defense of using footage hinged primarily on two points. The first point put across by the private channels was that since the Olympic Games take place once in four years, it was in ‘public interest’ to show it to the larger public in India, especially when Indian sports persons have won medals for the country in their respective sports items. The second point was that the footage of the Olympics beamed by the private news channels clearly showed “Dordarshan’s logo”, which not only ensured that the footage did not pass off as their own, but actually helped moved eyeballs to DD sports.
On March 15, 2004, the Supreme Court produce a provisional order on a special leave petition (SLP) filed by the agent of exclusive telecast rights holder for the India-Pakistan cricket series, Taj Sports India Pvt Ltd . After hearing of arguments, the Apex Court has directed Ten Sports which is the management company of Taj Television Ltd, to share the signal with DD citing ‘public interest’ since India was a cricket crazy nation and more than half the cricket crazy people did not have access to Ten Sports. It was clarified in the order that Ten’s signal should be relayed by DD as is complete with logo and all the advertising that the Dubai-based sports broadcaster Taj television ltd has secured. The apex court also ordered Prasar Bharati to deposit Rs 100 million with it as surety towards compensation payable, if any, to Ten Sports in regard to the dispute .
On February 17, 2006 the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on awarded global media rights to Nimbus Communications for all international and domestic crickets owned or controlled by BCCI to be played in India over the next four years. The broadcasting rights from March 1, 2006, to March 31, 2010. Nimbus Communications paid $612 million to BCCI for getting this exclusive right. Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati did not participate in the bidding process. This leads to next dispute between Nimbus and DD in January 2007 regarding the broadcasting right over the second One Day International between India and West Indies. Nimbus filed a petition before the Delhi High Court for preventing DD from using footage of our exclusive right. But in its provisional order, the court directed Nimbus to provide feed to DD, which will telecast it on DD International and its DTH service. The cricket action on DD International will, however, be at a delay of seven minutes. Considering the popularity of sports events in India especially cricket, DD and government always manages to force private broadcasters into sharing their signal with national broadcaster.
In an interview given to CNN-IBN, the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi said “BCCI had no right to sell the terrestrial and radio broadcasting rights to Nimbus because they are sacrosanct and belong to Prasar Bharati and AIR respectively,” Dasmunsi went as far as alleging that BCCI violated government guidelines when it invited tenders to sell the cricket broadcasting rights. BCCI Secretary Niranjan Shah responds that they would abide by the rules of the country but they too need to earn money. “We will look at it. We have to abide by the rules and regulations of the country but we have to also earn money. If we don’t sell the rights how will we get the money?
For escaping from the continuing conflict over the distribution/sharing of broadcasting signal, Doordarshan used its supremacy with the ministry for Information and Broadcasting (I&B), which made it mandatory for private television channels to share their live feed of the all one day international (ODI) cricket matches and the Twenty20 ties and some other test matches, citing public interest abroad . This “Broadcasting Signals Ordinance 2007” mandates that live television and radio feed, minus advertisements, be shared with Doordarshan and All India Radio for events judged as being of national importance by the Union Government. On the contrary, private television channels had paid substantial amounts of cash to secure telecast rights to all of those matches .
Relfi Paul
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