MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. The Moscow City Court has suspended the Twitch.tv live streaming service’s broadcasts of the English Premier League games as an interim measure of protection in a lawsuit filed by Rambler Internet Holding, part of the Rambler Group, a court spokesperson told TASS.

"The Rambler Internet Holding LLC has found its content (the live broadcasts of the English Premier League games) on the Twitch Interactive website and requested that the Moscow City Court take interim measures of protection for the company to be able to file a lawsuit within 15 days. The Moscow City Court has introduced the interim measures," the court spokesperson pointed out.

According to him, the ban concerns the 2019-2022 seasons of the English Premier League. The court first considered a request to prevent the website from using the plaintiff’s content, prohibiting the defendant from broadcasting games.

The Moscow City Court temporarily introduced the interim protective measures in the lawsuit concerning the safeguarding of the exclusive rights for audiovisual works on August 13, the court spokesperson noted. Fifteen days later, Rambler Internet Holding filed a lawsuit with the court.

The next court hearing is scheduled to take place on December 20.

Plaintiff’s claim

On Monday, Russia’s Kommersant daily reported that Rambler Internet Holding had filed a lawsuit against the Twitch service over pirated broadcasts of the English Premier League games, demanding that Twitch be banned and pay 180 bln rubles ($2.9 mln) in damages, said Yulianna Tabastayeva, who is representing the streaming service in court.

In 2019, the Rambler Group bought the exclusive rights to air the English Premier League matches in Russia through the Okko online cinema service. However, the company detected a large number of illicit, bootleg broadcasts on the Twitch website and filed a lawsuit against the Twitch Interactive company, requesting that the pirated broadcasts be prohibited.

According to Kommersant, in late November the plaintiff changed its claims, which currently stand at 180 bln rubles. The figure comes from multiplying the potential number of views of the English Premier League games on Twitch.tv (36,000) by the maximum compensation amount of 5 mln rubles ($79,700). However, the Rambler Group pointed out that it was up to the court to determine the final compensation figure.