According to the post at MMAWeekly:
Zuffa, LLC, owner of the Ultimate Fighting Championship brand announced on Friday that it filed a lawsuit against Justin.tv, Inc. for copyright and trademark infringement in United States District Court for the District of Nevada arising from Justin.tv’s alleged 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.I have not seen the complaint, but you may recall that last year Zuffa served a subpoena on Justin.tv under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act seeking:
Documents or electronically stored information in possession of or available to Justin.tv sufficient to allow Zuffa, LLC to identify the infringer(s) who made available for streaming on Justin.tv the video recordings described in the Notice of Copyright infringement attached as Exhibit A.Thus, last year Zuffa was seeking the identity of individuals or entities providing (i.e. uploading) the allegedly illegal stream to the Justin.tv site.
Now it appears Zuffa is attempting to go after the site where the allegedly illegal stream was posted. Notably, this is not the first time that Zuffa has been involved in an action seeking to hold a party liable for displaying what it alleges are infringing videos.
Specifically (and as set forth in my article at MMAPayout), Zuffa (with other interested parties) filed an amicus brief in the Viacom International, Inc. et al. v. Youtube, Inc. and Google, Case No. 1:07-CV-02103-LLS, (S.D.N.Y. 2007), arguing that the DMCA “safe harbor provision” should be read more narrowly to preclude service providers who intentionally and knowingly facilitate copyright infringement on the Internet.
In Viacom, the plaintiffs were arguing that defendants (YouTube and Google) would only take down copyrighted videos after being asked to do so and that this put the burden of policing content on the copyright holder and allowed defendants’ site users to post the infringing copies again as soon as they were removed.
Defendants relied on the “safe harbor” provision of the DMCA and argued that as long as they quickly removed allegedly infringing third-party posted content after being informed of its existence, they were shielded from liability.
Defendants prevailed as the Court held that they were entitled to the DMCA's "‘safe harbor’ protection against all of plaintiffs’ direct and secondary infringement claims, including claims for ‘inducement’ contributory liability, because they had insufficient notice, under the DMCA, of the particular infringements in suit.”
As set forth in the article at MMAWeekly:
“'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.'”Here (with the caveat that I have not reviewed the complaint and don't know the specific allegations contained therein), based on the press release I predict Justin.tv will, like the defendants in Viacom, seek the protection of the DMCA "safe harbor."
According to Justin.tv's website:
Justin.tv is the easiest way to create live video and show anyone in the world what's happening right now. Using only a laptop, you can share your event, class, party or thoughts, live, to anyone in over 250 countries while they chat in real-time with you and with other viewers. Justin.tv makes it fun, easy and fast to gather and engage with a live audience.Thus, Justin.tv, like YouTube, allows users to generate and post content. While YouTube allows posting of videos and Justin.tv allows streaming, I do not think this distinction is necessarily determinative in the DMCA analysis.
Moreover, like YouTube and Google, Justin.tv's website also provides what appears to be a DMCA compliant notification guideline.
The Viacom case is currently on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the decision of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York is not precedential in the District of Nevada.
Interesting case and I will continue to monitor.
Fight Lawyer
