Internet schools techie who bought JioHotstar domain ahead of merger to fund his education with negotiation fee

JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar merger is one of the biggest upcoming streaming revolution in India. Having been two of the biggest OTT players, their merger is expected to highly monopolize the market. However, much before all of it could possibly take shape, a techie bought the JioHotstar domain leaving the internet chatter extensively.

If you happen to check JioHotstar.com, you¡¯ll find content flashing where it is written Best of Entertainment, Streaming Soon but right after it shows a long message where a person claims that he has bought the domain and he wants Reliance Industries' (the parent company of JioCinema) to fund his education in Cambridge University in exchange for the domain rights.

Check out his note here:-

Reddit

In no time, this news made it to Reddit and several users dropped their thoughts. While many called it a smart move that might act in his favour, many made him understand that the giant industry could sue him easily. One user commented, ¡°This is called CyberSquatting, which is a punishable offence... He is a dumb guy to purchase the domain, if they file a complaint, he can't even board an international flight for studies.¡±

Someone said, ¡°f they want, they can sue him to he'll for cybersquatting (laughing emoji). Won't need to pay a penny.¡±

Another added, ¡°When bro will receive a legal notice for domain squatting, his dream will come down crashing like his Cambridge degree.¡±

Guess what? This actually happened.

The techie posted an update on the site where he revealed that he had been informed about a legal notice. ¡°Update as of October 24th: An Executive from Reliance reached out - Ambujesh Yadav Ji, AVP, Commercials. A request was made for ?93,345, which represents the tuition fees for the EMBA program. The request has been denied. Reliance will proceed with legal action. I don't have the power to stand against Reliance,¡± a part of his note read.

However, if reports are to be believed, the merger would never be named JioHotstar. An Economic Times report suggests that Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is planning to retain Disney+ Hotstar as the sole streaming platform after the merger of Star India and Viacom18. This means that the merger would see Disney+ Hotstar absorbing JioCinema and positioning the former as the primary streaming platform for the combined entity.