The high court of Kenya has ordered Safaricom and JTL to block streaming sites that air SuperSport channels.
The number of people who refuse to get DSTV because they have WiFi are quite a number. Older people still prefer DSTV and at the same time young people either prefer going to the bar to watch football or they would rather use illegal streaming sites which always pop up every chance they get.
A few times the legal system actually works.
The High Court of Kenya ruled that Safaricom and two internet providers should disable all of the sites. Though a number of Kenyans still cannot afford the DSTV package that offers sports so where will they stream from?However, the new order makes sense as people have been illegally streaming from these sites and at the expense of multichoice. According to the South African service provider they had previously sent them numerous messages asking them to take down sites but instead they ignored.
“Section 35B of the Copyright Act obligates an Internet service provider to take down any infringing content within 48 hours of being served with a takedown notice,” says MultiChoice in court papers.
“The rebroadcasting, retransmitting or replicating the exclusive content of the applicant without their authorization is a breach of their rights, is unlawful and causes irreparable economic loss to the applicant, not to mention other losses and evils that piracy perpetrates,” reads the papers.
However, the internet service providers have denied all claims and stated that they do not own these sites and therefore cannot disable them.
They have the power to block the sites from the subscribers and they have 48 hours to do so.