MUMBAI: As the ICC Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup gathers pace, JioStar has tightened the screws on digital piracy, launching a sweeping crackdown on rogue apps and websites illegally streaming its premium cricket coverage.
In recent weeks, the broadcaster has moved against a clutch of illicit IPTV applications accused of siphoning off live World Cup feeds without a licence. Among those removed from the Google Play Store were XCIPTV, Televizo, IPTV Smarters Pro, VU IPTV Player and XTV Ultra IPTV Media Player. In total, 36 infringing applications across Android and iOS ecosystems were taken down, together accounting for more than 26.11m global downloads.
The app-store purge builds on earlier criminal enforcement actions targeting organised piracy networks. Last year, JioStar said it helped dismantle a large-scale IPTV operation serving millions of users worldwide.
Acting under a dynamic injunction granted by the Delhi High Court, JioStar has suspended 141 piracy websites globally during the tournament, disrupting an estimated 12.2 million instances of infringing traffic. A further 279 websites carrying unauthorised streams, with more than 2m in combined traffic, have been blocked at the ISP level under the same order.
Beyond domain suspensions and app removals, the company’s anti-piracy team acted in real time against 15 additional third-party applications, denting an estimated 11.5 million piracy-driven traffic instances. The strategy is blunt: choke off illegal supply and funnel viewers back to JioStar’s official platforms, including JioHotstar.
With live sport remaining the last bastion of appointment viewing, broadcasters are under mounting pressure to defend broadcast reproduction rights. JioStar’s multi-pronged offensive, spanning courts, code and coordinated takedowns, underscores the high stakes of cricket’s most lucrative tournament.
