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.
I don't think a company should sue viewers who watched something illegally. I think that the sites that are offering the fights for free are more to blame. Logically, a person would rather watch a fight for free if they can instead of paying $55 to watch it. Even if Dana White is an advocate for SOPA there is no excuse to put someone's private information online to the public, especially sensitive information like ones social security number which can really create problems for the owner of the SS number if it falls to the wrong hands.
ReplyDeleteI agree, It's not the UFC's responsibility to focus on catching their viewers watching their fights illegally. They make revenue regardless in conjunction to live fight tickets and sports bars that host the fights.
DeleteIn my opinion, the company needs to get more involved in a piracy movement act. They need to be researching more into piracy instead of trying to sue everyone who pirated their shows. Their spending more time trying to find EVERYONE who pirated their fights when they could be using that time to try and protect themselves against it. There are many other things for the UFC to spend their money and time on besides suing everyone.
ReplyDeleteKaren, I couldn't agree with you more. Suing people who watch the show is a bit much. I can understand suing GreenFeedz for providing the information, but to try to lash out at all the other viewers is crazy. Who hasn't received a recorded tape or burned CD from someone in the past??? This just sounds like big business trying to get bigger. Sue the pirates, OK. But then use that money to protect yourself from others. Don't sue the "little guy" who happened to see what was pirated.
DeleteI completely understand where Dana White is coming from. If I were running a business and was losing millions of potential dollars to hackers I also would try to take a stand. As far as Dana's private information being hacked into, that is kind of scary. That type of information can not be changed like a credit card number can, you will have that information for life. If I were him I would be a little worried about pissing off the wrong people especially if they have his social security number among other important information.
ReplyDeleteI would have thought that music artists would have been the ones to lash back the most against piracy, I am surprised by the UFC. However it makes sense, someone owning a bar should have known better. It is scary to think that in return for SOPA support the Anonymous hackers attached the UFC sight. Wouldn't they be worried that they would increase support for SOPA with hacking, since it would limit hackers ability?
ReplyDeleteI do not know if suing is the correct or best action to take against those who may have illegally gained access to products. Although at the same time, consumers should not be watching/downloading/sharing if they are not appropriately going through the right process. Is it sometimes troublesome? Perhaps. But by doing it nonetheless, it is illegal. No matter how consumers may get around it, it's wrong. I believe there should be some sort of consequence, but in the meantime, I agree with Karen--they should be spending a lot of their current time trying to figure out how to protect their information so that the piracy will diminish, if not cease. After they are stable, they can figure out how they want to go about dealing with those who have been involved with illegal activity. Good thought-provoking post.
ReplyDeleteIs it fair to sue people for watching a pirated fight if they had no idea that it was illegally retained? I have been to UFC fights in bars before and I did not go and ask the owner whether they purchased it or not. If there is a viewing of it, I would believe that many people assume that it was not illegal. I think the main issue is the fact that people are getting through the system to be able to hack the viewing. On the other hand, the actual people who got access to a fight illegally should have to pay a fee but I wouldn't say sue them! On the other hand, it may not be so bad that people have this access because it will keep more people interested in watching the fights!
ReplyDeleteI had a few thoughts similar thoughts to yours, Samantha. It seems irresponsible for the owners of the bars to show the UFC fights without a license. It's part of their business model to publicly broadcast these fights so they should respect UFC and buy the viewing license for their bars. I do think it is extreme, however, for a company to try to sue every person who illegally streams their content. It seems like a giant waste of time and resources when they could instead focus on more efficient ways to deal piracy.
DeleteI can definitely see both sides of the argument. And that's one thing that I think our whole group has found in doing more research on piracy, is that there is definitely a fine line between the two arguments, In the case of the UFC fights, I'm sure majority of the people watching bars do not question whether or not the content is legal.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I could see the idea of finding away to fine those that watch streams but the amount and how to go about it would be a definite issue. It would also most likely be hard to enforce without suing them and taking them to court. The problem with that is that suing implies a greater cost than anything I would agree to being fair for watching a pirated stream of a fight. I also have been to plenty of bars to watch UFC fights and I automatically assumed that they have all been legitimately bought.
ReplyDeleteThis really needs to be addressed, many more company's will lose money with this streaming deal thats arising. This reminds me of when everyone started downloading music from these share music sites. Nobody wanted to buys CDs any more, and the artist lost millions.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting blog. I think it is a little excessive for the UFC to attempt to go after the individual users who stream their fights, however I can certainly understand their motivation for doing so. However, from the user's perspective I would certainly hesitate before registering with a site you know is potentially providing an illegal service. Especially when there are plenty of sites that don't require registration as well as things like proxy servers and VPNs to hide your online identity. So I guess in some ways the UFC will always be fighting a losing battle, just look at the music industry. Yes they shut down Napster and the like, but many people now use torrents. If I were in Mr. White's position, I would instead focus on what I can control and try to increase revenue by encouraging more fans to physically attend the fights or purchase merchandise.
ReplyDeleteI can understand both sides of this argument. Its not right for companies to be able to illegally show these fights. I do believe that they should be able to be sued. However, suing a company for $600k for not paying for a license that costs $500 to $1500 is excessive. I don't believe that they should be able to sue for astronomical amounts of money.
ReplyDeleteI think I would be upset too if someone hacked my company and stole what was my property. Not only that definitely legal action should be taken against those whom access my personal information like social security and other things and they may try to make profit out of it. It's not fair. On the other hand, I also think that companies should add extra security to insure their personal information stay within the company.
ReplyDeleteI totally understand the company wants to do so to protect its profits. However, i don't think it was very kind of the company to sue a bar owner for playing their show without license. And i believe that Dana White became a victim of hackers definitely showed that UFC has some policies that not vey reasonable. I don't think companies should let people to use their sources without any limit, but i also dont think a company should be too serious about every little thing.
ReplyDeleteI think as consumers it's difficult for us to truly understand the impact this can have on companies. As a spectator, I most likely don't care whether or not the UFC fight is legal (or not) at the bar I'm watching from. However, as management of the UFC organization, I would find it very important that these bars/restaurants are paying for the rights to show the fight.
DeleteI think this topic in particular is an interesting one, because it's different than the typical online music piracy that we experience.