UFC Sues UFC (Sort of)
Jake Rossen Mar 16, 2010
Content pirates are not really pirates in the sense that
they have any kind of reasonable defense in the event they get
caught. Real pirates can fetch automatic weapons; Internet stream
owners tend to be less formidable.
An illegal pay per view site is currently being sued out of existence by Zuffa in U.S. District Court. The complaint alleges site operators were freely advertising their ability to pass along a UFC 111 feed. (Because what you want to do in the event you’re a criminal is, of course, put up public notices about it.)
The UFC’s ability to shoot fish in a barrel that actually come up for air is not contestable: where they will continue to have trouble is in locating, identifying, and prosecuting the sites that operate far under the radar of a conventional Web presence. The really guarded probably hide IP addresses and shift their base of operations around; their viewers are probably sub-casual fans who wouldn’t pay for a show otherwise. (If they were obliging fans with money woes, they’d probably just go to a bar.)
The UFC had six of the ten highest-grossing pay per views of 2009; boxing continues to tick off record buys. As problems go, piracy runs a distant second to fighter pensions, insurance, or any number of productive ways you could spend the money lawyers devour.
An illegal pay per view site is currently being sued out of existence by Zuffa in U.S. District Court. The complaint alleges site operators were freely advertising their ability to pass along a UFC 111 feed. (Because what you want to do in the event you’re a criminal is, of course, put up public notices about it.)
The UFC’s ability to shoot fish in a barrel that actually come up for air is not contestable: where they will continue to have trouble is in locating, identifying, and prosecuting the sites that operate far under the radar of a conventional Web presence. The really guarded probably hide IP addresses and shift their base of operations around; their viewers are probably sub-casual fans who wouldn’t pay for a show otherwise. (If they were obliging fans with money woes, they’d probably just go to a bar.)
The UFC had six of the ten highest-grossing pay per views of 2009; boxing continues to tick off record buys. As problems go, piracy runs a distant second to fighter pensions, insurance, or any number of productive ways you could spend the money lawyers devour.
