After settling 500 anti-piracy lawsuits earlier this month the Ultimate Fighting Championship has shifted its focus to individuals who illegally stream UFC Pay Per View events via sharing sites like Justin.tv and Ustream.tv by serving the website owners subpoenas that force them to reveal the IP address of those users, according to an official statement by the UFC on Friday.
“I can’t wait to go after the thieves that are stealing our content,” said UFC President Dana White. “This is a fight we will not lose.”
Although laws governing the Internet are still in a development phase the UFC's parent company, Zuffa, LLC, relies on basic copyright laws that protect all creative productions by the UFC, including the PPV shows. As such the UFC can obtain a subpoena from a federal court ordering a service provider to disclose the identity of a subscriber who is allegedly engaging in infringing activities in accordance with §512(h) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Naturally, it will be difficult to sue individuals living outside the United States in civil court since American laws are not globally enforced. Nevertheless, the UFC should to at least be able to sue responsible individuals under the local law where the illegal download and streaming occurs.
Aside from the financial loss to the UFC online piracy also harms the economic growth and acceptance of mixed martial arts as a mainstream sport since it inevitably robs MMA fighters, trainers and UFC employees of their well-deserved incomes and eventually even their jobs.
Watch the video below to find out just how many jobs are lost due to online piracy according to a study done in the U.K. last March.
Related articles:
- UFC settles 500 anti-piracy lawsuits
- Joe Rogan unsupportive of Dana White's plan to sue illegal Pay-Per-View downloaders
- Dana White plans to move WEC fights from Versus to PPV in 2010, softens blow with free UFC prelims
Comments
You cant catch me
Why is Dana always crying like a little b*tch? Who wants to pay for the PPV's anymore after the Silva fight? And now you top it off by letting Koscheck be a couch on TUF? He dont deserve to be on that show (specially against GSP). After his 2 BS fake injuries from knees that never touched him? C'mon Dana, quit crying like a little b*tch and pick better fight cards. All I keep seeing is the same boring matches. So why should we pay for it?
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