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March 5, 2012

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UFC owner sues over unauthorized uploading of fight video

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Jae C. Hong / AP

Cain Velasquez, top, punches Brock Lesnar during UFC 121 in Anaheim, Calif., on Saturday, Oct. 23, 2010. UFC owner Zuffa LLC of Las Vegas says more than 50,000 people watched illegal live streaming feeds of the pay-per-view event.

By (contact)

Friday, Jan. 21, 2011 | 6:43 p.m.

Zuffa LLC of Las Vegas, owner of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, filed a federal lawsuit Friday against Justin.tv Inc. over what the UFC calls Justin.tv’s “ongoing failure to meaningfully address the rampant and illegal uploading” of video of live pay-per-view UFC events.

The suit in U.S. District Court for Nevada alleges copyright and trademark infringement. A request for comment was placed with Justin.tv, which is based in San Francisco.

“The Justin.tv website enables anyone with an Internet connection to broadcast live streaming video to an unlimited audience. Although purportedly developed to bring user-generated content to a large live audience, the Justin.tv website is routinely exploited by users to broadcast illegally uploaded content, including UFC events,” the UFC said in a statement.

The UFC lawsuit said that on Oct. 23, 2010, more than 50,000 people watched illegal live streaming feeds of the UFC 121 pay-per-view event.

This type of piracy hurts Zuffa, it says, because its suggested price for the pay-per-view of that event was $44.95. UFC 121 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., featured the heavyweight title fight between Brock Lesnar and Cain Velasquez.

“Third-party contractors hired and paid for by Zuffa removed more than 200 infringing live streams of UFC 121 from the Justin.tv website. This piracy represents a significant loss of revenue to Zuffa and its mobile, online, cable and satellite distribution partners each year,” the UFC’s statement said.

“Zuffa has attempted to work on numerous occasions with Justin.tv over nearly a two-year period to encourage it to prevent or limit its infringing activities,” one of Zuffa’s Las Vegas attorneys, Donald Campbell, said in the statement. “Regrettably, Justin.tv has not only turned a blind eye to the massive online piracy occurring on its website, we believe it has actually induced its users to commit copyright infringement, thus leaving Zuffa no alternative but to take this fight to the courts.”

Zuffa says it’s the largest provider of pay-per-view content in the world and delivers matches to fans in more than 354 million households across 145 countries and territories.

Zuffa said it encourages the development of new technology to deliver UFC content to licensed online platforms, mobile devices and gaming systems.

“However, Zuffa does not condone the use of streaming video or other new technologies to violate intellectual property laws, and it will vigorously protect its copyrighted content against piracy in any medium,” the company’s statement said.

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