Sri Lankan radio resumes commentary after court intervention
Sri Lanka's national radio broadcaster resumed its ball-by-ball commentary of the ICC Champions Trophy on Friday after intervention from the Supreme Court
CricInfo
20-Sep-2002
Sri Lanka's national radio broadcaster resumed its ball-by-ball commentary
of the ICC Champions Trophy on Friday after intervention from the Supreme Court.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) is trying to stop Sri Lanka
Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) from producing audio commentary without
broadcasting rights.
SLBC were offered official radio rights by the rights holder, a company
called Freschia that has acquired Sri Lankan and Pakistan radio rights for
the ICC Champions Trophy and the ICC World Cup.
But instead SLBC produced an "off-tube" broadcast, creating the commentary
from a television feed in their studio and refusing to purchase official
rights, claiming they were acting in the public's interest.
ICC lawyers, flown out from England and India, argued that SLBC was making
illegal profits from the live commentaries and demanded US $ 70,000 as
compensation.
The ICC sought and won an injunction in the Commercial High Court on
Thursday afternoon, forcing the SLBC to halt the commentary mid-way through
Australia-Bangladesh game.
However, SLBC took the issue up with the Supreme Court, which suspended the
earlier injunction pending a full inquiry on September 23. SLBC were forced
to lodge a USD $ 10,000 bond with the court.
SLBC Director General Nimal Lakshapathiarachchi immediately informed the
media that the commentaries would resume during South Africa's clash against
Kenya on Friday.
In the 2000 European Championships the BBC, the official rights holder, were
unable to obtain an injunction against TalkSport who produced a similar
off-tube broadcast.
The matter was settled out of court before a full trial. Press reports at
the time suggested that TalkSport had agreed to label all future off-tube
broadcasts as such, producing disclaimers at specified intervals in the
action.