Safaricom has appealed to the high court to stop the decision of blocking illegal streams.
Let’s take a bit of walk back to 2020 when MultiChoice the South African company that manages Supersport appealed to the high court to stop Safaricom and Jamii Telecom from playing football on illegal sites.
The streaming sites are an obvious threat since a majority of Kenyans cannot afford the premium subscription on DSTV but instead have over 130 streaming sites that they can watch football from.
The court order.
Safaricom and Jamii Telecom had been ordered to to blacklist the sites but this would be a huge blow to their business considering they sell broadband connection to hundreds of thousands of households.
However, since most people can now afford Wi-Fi a lot more people have opted out from MultiChoice especially the younger generation. It does make sense that MultiChoice is looking for a way to legally protect their revenue though in the corporate world everyone needs to make money one way or another.
Safaricom appeals.
Safaricom appealed in the Court of Appeal for a new hearing and they argued that if MultiChoice is granted what they want and sites will be blocked it would set a dangerous precedence and would put the telcos giant at risk by the possibility of being sued by other media companies.
MultiChoice had sought the help of the courts following an argument that it was losing substantial revenue to illegal streamers. Also, MultiChoice said that it owned content on illegal streaming websites, effectively making a case for copyright infringement.
The culture of using illegal sites to not only watch matches online but also favourite movies etc is going to take a lot more than a few cases in Kenya. A lot more people prefer to get Wi-Fi which the whole household can comfortably use and one wouldn’t need to invest in any other subscriptions. Basically the fight is not yet over and am sure football lovers are excited.
