The Ultimate Fighting Championship has submitted a subpoena to Justin.tv and Ustream.tv and demanded to know the names of their users who have been streaming their pay-per-view mixed martial arts events.
“I can’t wait to go after the thieves that are stealing our content,” declared its president Dana White. “This is a fight we will not lose.”
Despite earning over US$350 million in gross revenue in 2009, making them the largest pay-per-view provider in the world, the promotion believes that they could have earned more if not for the piracy from the streaming sites. Nicholas Deleon of CrunchGear, although agreeing that something was wrong, wrote that UFC should get its facts straight.
“How many of the people watching the stream have zero intention of paying for a UFC event,” he asked. “Granted, that doesn’t mean these people are entitled to watch the stream, but let’s not pretend that every viewer (or illegal streaming) is a lost sale.”
He also suggest to go beyond the two sites, because both Justin.tv and Ustream.tv have been actively patrolling their users for cases of material infringement, which results to account suspension or banning.
Let’s see how this case will develop. Will UFC go as far as suing its fans?
Source: MMAFighting.com, via CrunchGear
