UFC Hits Bar With $640,000 Lawsuit
After announcing the beginning of a legal campaign against sites who offer unauthorized streams of their events – and users who download them – the UFC have hit a bar owner with a $640,000 lawsuit
Last month, Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Lorenzo Fertitta testified at a hearing of the US House Judiciary Committee, claiming that his company is losing millions to online piracy.
As we reported yesterday on TorrentFreak, the UFC says that in response it will now start suing sites that offer illegal streams and those that view them. But their anti-piracy campaign doesn’t stop there.
According to a lawsuit filed in the District Court in Boston yesterday, the UFC is suing a bar owner for showing one of their events without an appropriate license.
The Boston Herald notes that a license for a UFC event costs between $500 and $1,500, depending on the size of the location showing it. A bar called The Draft did not possess one, say the UFC, hence the lawsuit.
“This is a situation where a bar has illegally taken our pay-per-view signal without purchasing it through our exclusive closed-circuit providers,” said Lawrence Epstein, the UFC’s general counsel.
The mixed-martial arts outfit says the bar showed UFC 104 via a laptop linked to a big screen, but the bar’s owner Derek Brady was defended by his lawyer.
“A patron walked into the establishment and . . . downloaded a paid event on their own laptop without any knowledge or permission of the establishment,” attorney Tammy Arcuri said.
So how much does the UFC want in damages? A mere $640,000…..plus legal costs on top.
For an individual to buy an event on PPV it costs around $50, so for the sake of argument, let’s presume that two people watch per buy. So by these calculations The Draft has a capacity in excess of 25,000 drinkers?
That’s one hell of a bar…..
I really hope that UFC gets what coming to them on this one. This really is a new low.
Lorenzo Fertitta is a fu©kin’ brainwashed poser muppet anyway. Who cares what he wants? With three fu©kin’ kids at home he would be more careful if he wasn’t livin’ in his imaginary world of false security.
Wow, I really like ufc, but wow, how low.
Let the fight begin
wow…..Ultimate Fucking Cocks
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F*** the UFC!!!!!!
Looka lika Wrestling to me.. bah so 70s
Why would anyone wanna watch this in a bar anyway?
Drink Beer instead
Wow, the same happens here in the Philippines. Every time when there is a fight with the local boxing hero “Packman” some smart guy with a satelite dish, laptop and a beamer, payes for the PPV signal. Then he sels tickets to the visitors. The fight is then beamed to a white screen (sheet).
They also sell drinks, and make good money.
The visitors don’t care, because the only thing that they are interested in, is to see the fight live without all te bulsh@t commercials.
The dream satelite provider says that anyone who does this, will be fined. But i never saw it happen.
And it is done in the street, not even inside a bar!
[...] di danni più le spese legali) intentata da Ultimate Fighting Championship contro un bar di Boston, colpevole di aver trasmesso gli incontri di arti marziali misti organizzati dall’associazione senza [...]
Don’t these assholes already have enough money? If they start doing this i’m done with watching UFC.
This has to be some kind of sick joke, because UFC “fights” suck so much that they should be paying us to watch them. I will never, ever understand the appeal of a UFC match. If I want to watch two sweaty dudes in their underwear play grabass with each other while trying to execute “the mount,” I’ll watch gay porn.
Has anyone not noticed over the last year or so that its pretty obvious that their are people throwing fights?! Look at Rich franklin in UFC 102 I think it was… The other guys finger barely hit Franklin on the back of his head and Franklin was pretty much unconcious. This took all of about 10 seconds of a so called fight to do this. They replayed the incident like 10 times and im not even sure if the other guy hit anything but hair and here Franklin is brain dead! Give me a f**kin break!
EAT S**T UFC! YOU ARE A JOKE! HULK-A-MANIA WAS MORE REAL THAN THAT GARBAGE! YOU DONT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT ME PIRATING UFC…I WOULD RATHER DUBB “CATS” THE MUSICAL BUT ON BY HOMELESS PEOPLE!
Where do they come up with that $ amount? Could this be the exact amount that they need to break even for that fight? The real question is weather or not our lawmakers are any brighter than these idiots getting their brains beaten out on the mat.
I am a bar owner in Washington and we purchased a fight, via dishnetwork, unaware of any other fees that we were supose to pay, and we are now being sued.. Our Attorney is still in negotiations with them, but they are wanting $12,000 plus fee’s for one fight. There are suits going on like this all over. If we have to payout we will end up closing our doors.. Its very sad.
This is perfect… stealing is stealing – I’m sure the 640,000 will get settled into a lower amount – but this is a perfect scare tactic to prevent people from stealing the fight. Why should everyone else pay and have the rates increase because a bar wants to make extra cash on a stolen fight?
oh and Eve, sue Dish – why would they have you on a residential account in a commercial area then sell you the product illegaly knowing that it’s for a bar? Hit them hard :D
[...] when the UFC gets tough, it really does ask for big money. Earlier this year a lawsuit filed in the District Court in Boston revealed that the UFC was suing a bar owner for showing one [...]
[...] cage and charge fans $50 bucks? Dana Whites gone "Micheal Jackson" crazy. He sued a little bar too UFC Hits Bar With $640,000 Lawsuit | FreakBits @pimpslappd Good question. I think that would be unfair and it would hurt the UFC to ban all the [...]