The Weekly Wrap: Jan. 2 - Jan. 8

UFC vs. Piracy

One of the UFC’s New Year’s Resolutions appears to be stamping out pirated and illegal streams of its pay-per-view broadcasts.

Following testimony by CEO Lorenzo Ferttita before a congressional committee that is looking at piracy in sports, UFC officials stated a mission in the press to sue people who tap their pay shows through Internet steams.

An article in The Vancouver Sun featured Dana White and UFC attorney Lawrence Epstein promising to spend significant money pursuing the IP addresses of people who illegally tap their pay-per-view content to put a chilling effect on the practice. Epstein said he “wouldn’t rule anything out” in terms of the steps the UFC is willing to take to curb piracy, while White promised to “hurt” sites that traffic in pirated UFC content.

The Boston Herald reported that the UFC filed a federal lawsuit against a sports bar in Boston for showing a pay-per-view without paying the proper licensing fee. The bar owner claimed a patron hooked up a laptop to a bar television to display a pirated stream. The UFC and its distributor charge bars between $500 and $1,500 to air a pay-per-view, the Herald reported. The UFC is seeking $640,000 in damages from the bar.