· Zuffa Files Suit Against Justin.tv
Press Release:
Las Vegas, Nevada – Zuffa, LLC (“Zuffa”), owner of the Ultimate Fighting Championship® (“UFC®”) brand announced today that it filed a lawsuit against Justin.tv, Inc. (“Justin.tv”) for copyright and trademark infringement in United States District Court for the District of Nevada arising from Justin.tv’s repeated and ongoing failure to meaningfully address the rampant and illegal uploading of video of live Pay-Per-View UFC® events by members and users of the Justin.tv website.
The Justin.tv website enables anyone with an internet connection to broadcast live streaming video to an unlimited audience. Although purportedly developed to bring user-generated content to a large live audience, the Justin.tv website is routinely exploited by users to broadcast illegally uploaded content, including UFC® events.
For example, on October 23, 2010, over 50,000 people watched live streaming feeds of the UFC 121 Pay-Per-View event. Indeed, third-party contractors hired and paid for by Zuffa, removed more than 200 infringing live streams of UFC 121 from the Justin.tv website. This piracy represents a significant loss of revenue to Zuffa and its mobile, online, cable and satellite distribution partners each year.
“Zuffa has attempted to work on numerous occasions with Justin.tv over nearly a two-year period to encourage it to prevent or limit its infringing activities,” Zuffa’s Las Vegas attorney, Donald J. Campbell said. “Regrettably, Justin.tv has not only turned a blind eye to the massive online piracy occurring on its website, we believe it has actually induced its users to commit copyright infringement thus leaving Zuffa no alternative but to take this fight to the courts.”
Zuffa is the largest provider of Pay-Per-View content in the world, and delivers exciting matches to fans in over 354 million households across 145 countries and territories. Zuffa encourages the development of new technology to deliver UFC® content to licensed online platforms, mobile devices, and gaming systems. However, Zuffa does not condone the use of streaming video or other new technologies to violate intellectual property laws, and it will vigorously protect its copyrighted content against piracy in any medium.
Ultimate Fighting Championship® - www.ufc.com
Owned and operated by Zuffa, LLC, and headquartered in Las Vegas, Nev., UFC® produces over twelve UFC live Pay-Per-View events annually and 30 live arena events around the world. UFC programming is distributed in the United States on Viacom, Inc.’s Spike TV and on Comcast, Inc.’s VERSUS network. UFC content is distributed commercially through Joe Hand Promotions in the U.S. and Canadastar in Canada. Globally, UFC programming is broadcast in over 145 countries and territories, reaching 354 million homes worldwide, in 19 different languages. Ancillary businesses now include UFC.com with over 5 million unique visitors per month, the best-selling UFC “Undisputed” videogame franchise distributed by THQ, UFC Gym™, UFC Fight Club affinity program, UFC Fan Expo™ festivals, branded apparel, trading cards, articulated action figures and other media including best-selling DVDs and a U.S. bimonthly magazine.
Ultimate Fighting Championship®, Ultimate Fighting®, UFC®, The Ultimate Fighter®, Submission®, As Real As It Gets®, Zuffa®, The Octagon™ and the eight-sided competition mat and cage design are registered trademarks, registered service marks, trademarks, trade dress and/or service marks owned exclusively by Zuffa, LLC and licensed to its affiliated entities and other licensees in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other marks referenced herein may be the property of Zuffa, LLC, its affiliates or other respective owners.
