Steve Green of the Las Vegas Sun is reporting that Zuffa has filed a lawsuit against two website operators promoting unauthorized use of the up-coming UFC 111 broadcast.
Attorneys for Zuffa, Michael Feder and John Krieger of the Las Vegas office of the law firm Lewis and Roca LLP, charge in the complaint that an individual in Framlingham, Suffolk, United Kingdom, registered the watchufc111 name and an individual in Jacksonville, Fla., registered the watchufc111free name.
The suit alleges UFC’s next mixed martial arts event, UFC 111, is set for March 27 and that the Web sites at issue have been linking to sites promoting free access to UFC 111, which is scheduled to be a pay-per-view event.
The lawsuit claims the Web site names were registered with the bad faith intent to profit from UFC’s trademarks and claims the registrants of the names have been cybersquatting, or trafficking in Web site names confusingly similar to those of the UFC.
Payout Perspective:
Both Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta have gone on record saying Zuffa will pursue individuals that pirate UFC content by any means necessary, even if it costs the company a lot more than it stands to gain by stopping the illegal broadcasts.
While both men are understandably looking to send a clear and concise message to would-be infringing parties, one has to wonder how successful the company will be in shutting down the illegal distribution of its events (and, thus, whether it’s worth it in the long-term).
In this day and age of piracy, especially where streaming sites and p2p file-sharing are concerned, when one window is closed, another two usually open in its place. The UFC is right to want to protect its property, but does it stand a real chance at deterring illegal behavior? It may come to light that the fight to absolutely extinguish piracy is a losing battle; a lesson that that the movie and music industries have been slowly learning over the past 10-15 years.
Moreover, it would seem to me that there is an acceptable – if not healthy – level of piracy in the current content marketplace. The UFC may very well be able to redeem some of the losses, due to piracy, in the future as the result of those infringing individuals actually becoming legitimate, paying customers of UFC property and content.
Note: I won’t get into it, but the same economic theories that prove there is an acceptable level of inefficiency, pollution, and crime could be used to further support the above hypothesis that there is an acceptable level of piracy. Although, that still doesn’t absolve anyone from stealing.
Your spot on Kelsey. This kinda reminds me of the whole Napster situation many moons ago. Industry thought that it could stop the sharing of music if they took out Napster. We all know how that ended.
Innovation is the key, not war against the tech savy 17 year olds. Maybe they should consider a model similar to Apple and Itunes. That has been extremely successful.
The movie industry claims piracy is killing their business but then the MPAA announces they just had their best year ever.
Nice article about that here: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100312/0039048529.shtml
So I agree there is an acceptable level of piracy that could be considered healthy because it does bring in new paying customers. However your right it’s hard to condone someone doing it because it is illegal.
UFC has a smaller pool of piracy to worry about than movie and music companies. It’s a much smaller job but still a tough one.
Agree with JJ.(above)
The pool of piracy the UFC is attempting to tackle is very sustainable. Will they put an end to all illegal downloads… No way. But they increase ppv buyrates with diminshing options for internet fanboys. I know an abundance of individuals who have already become more prone to buy a ppv since watching online has become increaslingly difficult.
Napster changed the music business forever, mainly by convincing an entire generation that music should be free. Even further, many consider it stupid to purchase music. The result so far with music downloads is that musicians and the music industry make much less money.
Individuals and companies deserve to get paid for their creations. If you take property without payment or permission, you are stealing.
Just because someone can wiggle around the law with the latest technology does not make it right.
Fighters and promotion companies deserve to be paid for their efforts and investments. Stealing an event off the internet is no different than sneaking the event, or stealing a DVD off the shelf.
into the event