Actress Tamannaah Bhatia has been summoned by the Maharashtra Cyber Department for interrogation regarding the illicit streaming of the 2023 Indian Premier League (IPL) on the Fairplay App. This incident apparently resulted in huge financial losses for Viacom, which controls the IPL’s official broadcasting rights. Bhatia will have to appear before the authorities on 29th April.
The Fairplay app is a betting application designed for the Indian market. It is accessible for free for both Android and iOS devices. The said app is said to have caused a loss of crores of rupees to Viacom.
Maharashtra Cyber summons actor Tamannaah Bhatia for questioning in connection with the illegal streaming of IPL 2023 on Fairplay App that caused loss of Crores of Rupees to Viacom. She has been asked to appear before Maharashtra Cyber on 29th April.
— ANI (@ANI) April 25, 2024
Actor Sanjay Dutt was also… pic.twitter.com/3Y4TvPHayh
Earlier in the year 2023, the Cyber Cell of Maharashtra Police called rapper Badshah for interrogation in connection with the illegal screening of the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament on an online betting app named ‘FairPlay’ he promoted. Subsequently, he appeared at the Maharashtra Cyber office in Mumbai.
The Fairplay app is a subsidiary app of the Mahadev app, promoters of which have links with Dawood Ibrahim’s D-company and are being probed in a money laundering case by the Enforcement Directorate.
According to reports, the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) to stream the IPL 2023 matches were owned by Viacom18. However, Fairplay was screening the cricket competition concurrently from March 2023 to May 2023.
The network had lodged a police complaint against the rapper and 40 other individuals, which included actor Sanjay Dutt. They were accused of endorsing the use of a betting app called Fairplay which was illegally broadcasting the Indian Premier League (IPL) matches.
Viacom 18 highlighted that it had the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) to stream the IPL matches. It pointed out that the matches were illegally streamed on Fairplay and some actors promoted the tournament on the Fairplay app. Viacom 18 also said that the digital piracy by the Fairplay app cost them a loss of Rs 100 crores.
Subsequently, a case of digital piracy was filed by the media network with the possibility that more actors could likely be summoned in the case.
