The Ultimate
Fighting Championships (UFC) has had a very controversial history with piracy
and has recently begun trying to sue not only the people who illegally streamed
their product as well as those who watched the illegal streams. GreenFeedz is
the first site that the UFC has been able to coerce into giving out information
on those that watched the pirated UFC events. GreenFeedz is a site that
required a user name and email address to watch the fights. When threatened
with legal action GreenFeedz agreed to turn over the legal email addresses,
user names and IP addresses as well as a list of which events they pirated. The
UFC defended this action by saying that since 13 of their events a year are pay
per views that cost from $45 to $55 dollars each that they lose millions of
dollars from piracy. The UFC recently sued a bar owner that showed one of its events
without a license (licenses run from $500 to $1500) for $640,000 plus legal
fees.
Although the UFC has taken many shots
at internet pirates themselves they have also taken some shots of their own.
Recently the UFC president Dana White got into an online argument on twitter
with members of the hacker group Anonymous. The fight seemed to start because
of Dana White's position on piracy and support of the Stop Online Piracy Act.
Soon after the altercation the UFC site was hacked for a second time, and Dana
White's personal information such as his social security number, cell phone
number, and address.
Do you think companies should be able to sue the people who
illegally watch their product?
How would you respond to the hacking of your companies site
or your personal information if you were Dana White?
Snel, Alan. "Las Vegas Review-Journal." UFC
Executive Fends off the Programming Pirates. Las Vegas Review Journal, 16
June 2013. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.
Guillen Jr., Adam. "Report: UFC to Take Legal Action
against Fans Who Watched Pirated PPV Streams on GreenFeedz -
MMAmania.com." MMAmania.com. N.p., 13 Mar. 2012. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.
Gross, Doug. "UFC President Hacked after Scrapping
with Anonymous." CNN. Cable News Network, 27 Jan. 2012. Web. 04
Nov. 2013.
Enigmax. "TorrentFreak." TorrentFreak RSS.
N.p., 9 July 2010. Web. 04 Nov. 2013.
