Sunday, March 21, 2010

Hotel pays price for screening IPL match

MUMBAI: Organising a ‘special screening’ of an IPL match on Sunday cost a five-star hotel in Navi Mumbai dear.
The Navi Mumbai police on Sunday evening raided The Park hotel in CBD Belapur while the screening of the match was underway and seized the screen and projector. This is the second such raid in the recent past.
The hotel was illegally screening IPL matches in the lounge bar, the police said, adding that the hotel had even advertised the screenings through SMSs. “The hotel was promoting the matches without the permission of the copyright holders,’’ said deputy commissioner of police (Zone-1) Ashok Dudhe.
Dudhe said any establishment including hotels, pubs, clubs and restaurants can’t screen matches being broadcast on domestic cable network for commercial purposes. Such establishments have to approach Valuable Media Ltd (VML), which has the sole right screen IPL matches commercially in India, he added.
VML had served a notice to the hotel management on Saturday, but the hotel management told us that they had not received it and that they were not aware of the rules for the screening of IPL matches, said Dudhe.
Ishwar Shandilya, legal head of VML said they had bought these rights from Entertainment and Sports Direct (ESD) of Mauritius, which holds the global commercial screening rights. VML has allowed over 300 theatres, multiplexes, clubs, hotels, pubs, bars and restaurants to screen IPL matches.

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