Zuffa Gets TRO In Piracy Case Shutting Down Livevss.tv Livevss.net -- TRO Seems Overly Broad

Following up on my post, Zuffa Files Lawsuit Seeking To Shut Down livevss.tv & livevss.net, on October 12, 2010 Judge Kent J. Dawson entered a temporary restraining order against Daniel Wallace, the alleged "owner and operator" of livevss.tv and livevss.net.

Specifically, the TRO provides in relevant part as follows:

THEREFORE, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT, pending a full trial on the merits:

A. Defendant, defendant’s agents, servants, employees and/or all persons acting in concert or participation with defendant are prohibited from copying, manipulating, adapting, reproducing, uploading, distributing, sharing, selling or displaying any of Plaintiff’s Copyrighted Broadcasts and are prohibited from copying, manipulating, adapting, reproducing, uploading, distributing, sharing, selling or displaying UFC 120 in any manner;
B. The domain name registrar, eNom, Inc., is ordered to take possession of <livevss.tv> and <livevss.net> domain name registrations and ensure that they are not accessible to Internet uers [sic] until the Court rules on Plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction;
C. A nominal bond of $100 shall be required because the evidence indicates that Defendant will only suffer, if at all, minimal damage by the issuance of this temporary restraining order and injunction.

Notably, unlike the TRO entered in the hq-streams case, Zuffa Gets Its Temporary Restraining Order Prohibiting Stream of UFC 118 at hq-streams.com, here the Judge ordered the domain name registrar, eNom, Inc. to take possession of the domain names pending a ruling on Zuffa's motion for a preliminary injunction.  It seems pretty clear that the Court simply adopted the proposed order provided by Zuffa that was referenced in my earlier post because the Court, like Zuffa, misspelled "users" as "uers."

Quite frankly, I am surprised that the Court would completely shut down the two sites given that Zuffa alleged in its complaint that "Defendant regularly broadcasts 'live streams' of pay-per-view events, including MMA contests and exhibitions, boxing, and wrestling matches, for free on Defendant’s Website." 

It is clear from these allegations that the sites at issue were not exclusively devoted to alleged broadcasts of UFC events and so completely shutting down the site could cause damage if legitimate broadcasts are streamed at the site.  It seems "A" above would have adequately protected Zuffa here.

I think the TRO entered in the hq-streams case was more appropriate.  At a minimum, if you are going to shut down the site completely, the bond should be greater than $100.

The motion for a preliminary injunction is set for November 3, 2010 at 9 a.m.

Fight Lawyer