look news india
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday carried out massive raids in several places including Delhi, Lucknow, Bengaluru. The investigating agency froze crores of rupees and also seized lakhs of rupees and several digital devices. The raids were conducted by the ED in several states under the alleged illegal live streaming of some matches of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup held in June and related money laundering cases.
The federal probe agency said its officers and the Ahmedabad cyber police department carried out raids at around 20 locations in Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru (Karnataka), Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) and Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) in connection with the case against the betting website “Magicwin” web portal.
Live broadcasting of matches without permission
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) case, filed under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), arose from an FIR filed by the Ahmedabad police alleging that a website called Magicwin.games had launched a scam this year by illegally broadcasting World Cup matches. The ED said the International Cricket Council (ICC) had awarded the broadcast rights of the tournament to Star India Pvt Ltd.
Investigative agencies made a big disclosure
The investigating agency said Magicquinn can be opened on any internet browser on mobile phones, smart TVs and computers, however here one has to pay for the content and then the viewers are allowed to watch the live matches for free. The ED claimed that apart from the match between Canada and Ireland on June 7, the portal also “illegally” broadcasted the high-voltage T20 World Cup match between India and Pakistan on June 9 through a link, which was streamed from OTT platform Disney+ Hotstar. This had caused huge losses to the company which had acquired the right to live stream the tournament matches.
Illegal broadcasting for betting
It is being alleged that the website is involved in several illegal activities like betting on live cricket matches and other sports. This website broadcasts several live matches of T20 World Cup 2024 without any subscription charges. All this was done to lure common people to place bets on their website.
ED conducted search operation
The ED said that apart from cash worth Rs 30 lakh, criminal records and digital equipment were also seized during the search operation. Rs. 2 crore was frozen. Several crypto wallets with deposits of Rs 12 crore were identified. It is believed that people involved in this illegal activity used cryptocurrency wallets. About Rs 12 crore has been recovered from the cryptocurrency wallets. The ED has directed them not to “liquidate” the cryptocurrency from their wallets. The investigation in this case is still going on and more arrests may be made in this case soon.
Copyright infringement
The case also went to court. The Star India Pvt Ltd vs Magicwin.games case focuses on the issue of intellectual property rights, particularly copyright infringement and misuse of proprietary content. This legal battle illustrates the complexities of digital content distribution and the challenges media companies face in protecting their intellectual property in the digital age.
Copyright violation: The main issue in the case was whether the streaming of live cricket matches by Magicwin.games without obtaining a license from Star India amounted to gross copyright infringement under the Indian Intellectual Property Act.
Broadcasting rights: The case also investigated whether MagicWin.Games had infringed Star India's exclusive broadcasting rights, which give them sole rights over the distribution and public broadcasting of the matches.