High Court Restrains ‘Unauthorised’ Broadcast Of Bigg Boss

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has come down heavily and restrained the unauthorised streaming of the reality television show Bigg Boss.

The high court said that the mushrooming of websites illegally broadcasting content of Bigg Boss Season 17 would boost piracy, causing “heavy losses to the plaintiff,” reported PTI.

The high court was hearing a lawsuit filed by Viacom18 Media Private Limited, which owns Colors TV, on which Bigg Boss airs. The lawsuit contented that the programme enjoys “enormous popularity” and illegal dissemination of its content, irrespective of past and future seasons, would be an infringement of the plaintiff’s copyright over the broadcast and reproduction rights of the show.

The plaintiff told the high court that it airs the reality show in various formats on its television channels and OTT platform. However, several websites, with Bigg Boss as their domain name, are broadcasting the content for viewing in an unauthorised without licence, which is going to make a monetary dent in its business.

“Accordingly, the defendant Nos 1 to 5 are restrained from broadcasting, telecasting, streaming, retransmitting and hosting any episode of the Bigg Boss programme, which have already been telecast or which are likely to be telecast in the near future,” Justice Prathiba M Singh stated in an interim order.

“If any further websites with the name Bigg Boss are found by the plaintiff or any other websites which are telecasting illegally the programmes of the plaintiff, an application shall be filed impleading these websites… The present injunction shall accordingly extend to those websites as well,” the judge added.