When Dana White said the UFC was coming down hard on piracy, he wasn’t kidding.
Only two days after the UFC declared war on anyone involved in the illegal streaming of UFC events comes news that the UFC has filed suit against The Draft, a local Boston bar, for showing UFC 104 through a computer hooked up to their TV, thus bypassing the $500-$1500 licensing fee bars are required to pay. The kicker is the damages the UFC is seeking. Try $640,000 plus legal costs, the maximum allowed by law.
“This is a situation where a bar has illegally taken our pay-per-view signal without purchasing it through our exclusive closed-circuit providers,” said Lawrence Epstein, the UFC’s general counsel.
An eyewitness verified the bar showed the live event via a laptop computer hooked up to a TV, said Julie Lonstein, another UFC attorney. The UFC has a network of auditors who look for establishments that illegally broadcast its events.
The Draft however contends a bar patron was responsible for showing the event without their permission, and therefore they are without fault.
But Brady’s attorney said he’s “completely without fault.”
“A patron walked into the establishment and . . . downloaded a paid event on their own laptop without any knowledge or permission of the establishment,” attorney Tammy Arcuri said.
There’s no telling how far the UFC is willing to take their war against piracy, but clearly they are looking to make examples out of the people and establishments they do go after.
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Just go to a bar that is showing the fight people! If there aren’t any close, hop on Facebook or Twitter and get some people together to pitch in.
That’s fuckin ridiculous. They are damaging their reputation (now they really look like the greedy motherf…… they truly are) for 1500 USD of prejudice! This is even more ridiculous that this company has never been so rich…
Recall the Metallica case against Napster? The band badly harmed its reputation among their fans for very small benefits.
I completely agree. They should appreciate how big they are. More people pay for it then steal so I say that they already won. I know they’re trying to stand for something but they just look like assholes. Poor Dana White with all the people stealing the PPV’s he’ll have to wait another week before he can afford his second Private Jumbo Jet.
On a side note. I don’t beleive The Draft about the whole without their knowledge. you don’t notice someone hooking up a laptop to one of your tv’s? and then a crowd forming around it?
Ya, that sounded pretty sketchy to me too. I don’t think they deserve to pay $640,000 in damages though either. That’s ridiculous. I’m sure they would settle for a far less figure, but that kind of punishment doesn’t fit the crime in my opinion. I could see $10,000 or something, but six-figures is extreme.
[...] so far the UFC has kept things relatively small scale, only suing some bar in Boston for playing UFC 104 off a laptop and now suing some fly by night pay to stream site. Las [...]