DStv owner seeks jail term for Jamii CEO Joshua Chepkowny in piracy row

MultiChoice Kenya wants Jamii Telecom chief executive officer Joshua Chepkowny sent to jail over the failure to pull down sports pirating sites as directed by the High Court last month.

The pay-TV firm has filed a case under a certificate of urgency claiming huge losses from the delayed take-down of the sites.

MultiChoice moved to court in 2019 accusing Jamii Telecom and Safaricom of allowing the sites to re-broadcast and replicate exclusive content without its authorisation.

Read: High Court orders ISPs to block sports pirating websites

Subscribers to Multichoice’s DStv and GoTV packages pay a monthly fee while those streaming the games on the controversial websites only incur data costs.

“The continuous disobedience of the said orders by the respondent has and continues to occasion huge losses to the applicant as their protected content is accessed freely by pirating sites or domains with reckless abandon,” said Fredrick Saramba, the anti-piracy and security manager at MultiChoice.

Justice Wilfrida Okwany had directed the internet service providers (ISPs) to permanently block the sites upon being served with the court order.

“An order of permanent injunction is hereby issued to the 1st and 2nd respondents to impede the use of its service to access a service, website place, domains or facilities situate in or outside Kenya that is used to infringe the applicant’s copyright as contained in the take-down notice,” the judge said.

Huge loses

Mr Saramba said in an affidavit that they have been monitoring the compliance of the ISP to confirm whether they had blocked the pirating sites as directed.

Read: Multichoice wins bid to block piracy sites

“I can confirm that they have not done so as pirate sites are accessible on their network occasioning huge losses to the applicant,” he said.

The firm now wants Mr Chepkwony jailed or fined for disobeying the court directive.

“It is just and fair that the chief executive officer of the respondent be ordered to pay fines or committed to prison and for such period of time this honourable court may deem fit,” he said.

MultiChoice issued the takedown notices for the 141 sites in October 2019 but the telcos ignored arguing that the notification did not describe in detail, the copyrighted work that was infringed and that they were unable to locate the specific infringing sites within the domains.

MultiChoice Kenya managing director Nancy Matimu expressed her disappointment at the leading telco’s blatant failure to comply with the court order.

“The Kenyan law has sent a clear message that we respect the right of content creators to earn a living from their work,” Ms Matimu said.

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