There is an interesting bit of news over at the Wrestling Observer where they are reporting that the UFC intends to go after individuals who watch illegal streams of events, not just the websites that host the streams. This is unusual for pay-per-view event copyright cases, which almost always focus on the hosting site.
Here’s the info from the Wrestling Observer:
As part of legal action against the web site www.greenfeedz.com, which streamed UFC 130 to 142 illegally and was threatened with legal action, Zuffa was able to obtain e-mail addresses, user names, and each individual event streamed as well as IP addresses of everyone who watched an event through that web site and will be legally going after the individual consumers for copyright violations.
So basically, if you were registered on that site and watched an event, the UFC now has your information and will be looking to take legal action against you.
I’d be lying if I said I had much insight into what exact damages the UFC could go after in these cases, but this is clearly going to serve as a major deterrent to individuals to look for streams online going forward.
Honestly, this is a much more appropriate response for them in terms of action against piracy than ideas like supporting SOPA and will be a story that we’ll have to keep our eyes on in the future.
About the author
