Times of India 

NEW DELHI, Apr 5: Everyone knew that the Indian Premier League was all about big bucks but no one knew that BCCI would put a price on everything. Even before a ball has been bowled in the new domestic Twenty20 event, an all-out war has broken out between the country’s cricket administrators and media organizations incensed over stringent restrictions regarding the coverage of the tournament.

On Friday, the Editors Guild of India and the Sports Journalists Federation of India both wrote scathing letters to BCCI chief Sharad Pawar, assailing the accreditation norms for the league and bluntly stating that the guidelines were "unacceptable".

Editors Guild president Alok Mehta told TOI , "The media has been given freedom to cover and communicate things to the public. We have written to BCCI but they are yet to get back to us." The guild letter said: "With deep regret and dismay, we are forced to point out that there are prohibitive conditions in the terms and conditions attached to the form, specifically paras (d) and (e), which deal with conditions of accreditation for print media and photographers. These are unprecedented and unacceptable."

Discounting the crucial role the media play in highlighting the game, the IPL governing body has refused to grant accreditation to websites for the event, and claimed sole copyright over all news photographs clicked by newspapers and agencies during the games.

IPL says it can use these images for free and without restriction, and has also asked media organizations to upload all their original photographs on the IPL website within 24 hours. It has also restricted web portals’ access to images without prior permission.

With all newspapers having online editions, this means media organizations have been barred from uploading their own images online, a ridiculous demand which now threatens a media boycott of the much-hyped event unless BCCI does a rethink on its petty commercial agenda.