Twitter’s Periscope to be blocked during Turkish football games: Court

ISTANBUL

Twitter’s live-streaming service Periscope will be blocked during Turkey’s top football league matches, an Istanbul court has said in a landmark ruling.

According to a report by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency on Aug. 4, the 1st Court of Intellectual and Industrial Property Rights in Istanbul ordered a provisional injunction to block access to Periscope during Super Toto Super League games.

Turkey’s Internet Service Providers Union (ESB) Secretary General Bülent Kent told the agency that the ruling, which was issued after a legal complaint by the league’s official broadcaster Digiturk, will come into effect on Aug. 10, the day that the new football season is scheduled to start.

Digiturk had complained that Periscope was not effectively tackling illegal broadcasters of live Super League matches on its platform.

“It is the first time since the ESB was found that a court ruled for blocking access to a digital service for a certain period of time in a day. We will block access to Scope when a Super League match starts and resume the access after it ends,” he added.

Twitter’s Periscope was forced to change its name to Scope over another court ruling last month, after it was threatened with an access ban due to infringement of a Turkish trademark.

A Turkish advertising company titled Periscope İletişim had sued Twitter at the Istanbul 2nd Court of Intellectual Property Rights last year.

The company said it had registered the trademark in Turkey before Periscope was founded in the U.S. in 2015. It claimed that Twitter’s mobile app, its account @Periscopeco and its website www.periscope.tv violated its trademark.