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the war continues!

2K views 21 replies 18 participants last post by  Nomale 
#1 ·
As the Ultimate Fighting Championship continues its aggressive anti-piracy stance, it has now stepped up to take another site offline. Following various takedown requests, UFC applied pressure to the host of Wrestle Zone, a site indexing UFC content. Although the site’s German ISP caved in and took the site offline, its owner is utterly defiant and is taunting the UFC with an immediate comeback and a guarantee that he will never submit.

When it comes to anti-piracy action, the last couple of years have been busy ones for the UFC. Through legal pressure the organization took down several sites offering unauthorized streams in the first half of 2010 and in July announced that it had reached settlements with 500 infringers.

UFC parent company Zuffa then subpoenaed two hugely popular streaming video sites, Justin.tv and Ustream.tv, to force them to hand over the identities of users who uploaded two UFC events earlier this year.

Continuing with its never-ending battle against piracy, this week another site felt the presence of UFC’s legal team, but saw it employing a slightly different strategy than it has used in the past.

Wrestle-Zone.net, which celebrated 3 years online on 21st October, is an indexing site which links to streams of UFC events and other MMA / wrestling related download links. Not to mention plenty of soccer.

On August 7th, UFC lawyers contacted Domains By Proxy, the shielding service used by the 25,000 member Wrestle Zone, demanding that they hand over the site owner’s details so that they could sue him.

“But to their disappointment me being a Pakistani made them cry,” Wrestle Zone admin EvilGenius told TorrentFreak. “I was given 5 days to comply but nothing happened.”

But the world’s biggest MMA outfit weren’t through. This week, UFC lawyers contacted NetDirekt, the German ISP of Wrestle Zone.

“Please see the attached letter that provides notice of copyright and trademark infringement at domain name http://www.wrestle-zone.net/,” NetDirekt told Wrestle Zone in an email.

“We request your assistance in protecting Zuffa, Inc and Ultimate Fighting Championship’s intellectual property rights by removing the protected content from your website and to cease and desist from ever streaming Zuffa’s pay-per-view events again.”

TorrentFreak has obtained a copy of the two page complaint (below the article).

EvilGenius responded by explaining that his site is only an indexing site, but NetDirekt weren’t sympathetic. They told him that “linking is illegal in Germany” and promptly null-routed the site. Eventually NetDirekt allowed Wrestle-Zone to put up a temporary page.

“We have been forced to pack our bags and depart from our current host. UFC launched some complaints and host took me down,” said the notice.

“Message to who it concerns – You think i’m scared?”

EvilGenius told us yesterday that he’d already paid for new servers in Sweden and would be back shortly. Indeed, the site is now back up and fully operational. Time will tell if UFC pursue the site’s new host.

This latest action comes after it was revealed last month that the UFC were pursuing a British man who ran the sites Livevss.tv and Livevss.net which carried a stream of September’s UFC 119 event. UFC also sought an injunction to stop him streaming UFC 120 last month.

UFC claimed that by having advertising on the site, owner Daniel Wallace was making money from the illicit streams and on this basis demanded $150,000 per infringement, the same amount being claimed from Wrestle-Zone.

http://torrentfreak.com/ufc-attacks-pirate-site-owner-defiant-refuses-to-submit-101029/

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when will they learn?:confused03:
 
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#2 ·
heh They'll never win this battle. New sites pop up as quickly (or quicker) than Zuffa can take them down, and not every nation complies with US law. I've yet to have a problem finding a download of any UFC event within minutes of its completion, actually.

lol nice try though.
 
#3 ·
The problem is that there are so many lawyers ready to tell the UFC that they have the legal tools to solve their problems, when in fact the lawyers are just looking for a big payday as always and can no more stop piracy than any other media sector has been able to.
 
#4 ·
nothing new.. this type of Piracy and counter-Piracy has been going on with Torrent Sharing/Warez Sites for years ..

there is no way UFC will ever stop Piracy..

Even if they succeed in bringing down a site.. they'll just pop back up on another Domain ... there are plenty of off-shore companies that cater to Sites that require anonymity ..
 
#6 ·
if i ever owned a Corporation as big as the UFC ..
i would invite the Piracy..
it's free exposure into different groups/genres of people that otherwise would have never gotten into MMA .. which feeds/fuels the fire for their product...

Plus.. the heavy-handed approach only makes the UFC look bad..
 
#13 ·
People are being just plain silly if they think that A) The UFC should not try and stop it. By allowing it to be it would become to easy to find and kill PPV profits. B) If people think the UFC is even trying to kill it or thinks they can there crazy. The UFC realizes that you can't kill it but they want to make it as difficult as possible so people can't keep going to the same site(s) to find it.


That is utter crap, if it ever gets to easy to find high quality streams plenty of people who would order the PPV would stream instead. The only reason a lot of people don't stream is that right now with technology the way it is streams are usually killed half way through, slow choppy or of just low quality. As technology advances it will become a much bigger problem.
 
#12 ·
If it wasent for piracy I would never have noticed MMA and never become a fan. That must have been like 5 years ago (around UFC 50).

Piracy made me a fan and since then I bought the channel that sends UFC events here in Sweden. Since I'm not american and can't buy PPVs they've not made much money off me but still I'm now atleast a paying customer.

Even if they could stop (or even slightly hinder) piracy they would loose money by doing it. So few corporations see piracy as a way of marketing. Many ppl pay for stuff they really like and would pay some extra to see it live. Now the UFC and countless other companies are just throwing money down the pipe, and feeding the lawyers fat bellies.

Like a certain guy on TV once said; You can't stop the internet man!



EDIT: Lol I didn't even read any of the replies to the OP before I posted and now I've read them and there were like 4 posts saying exactly the same thing as me. Lol thats awesome. Just proof of the power of piracy as marketing.
 
#17 ·
I fecking hate pirates. They are the most egotistical wankers on the planet. This attitude like they are fighting "the man" when in reality they are raking in advertising money.

Good on the UFC. Saying they shouldn't bother is like saying you shouldn't fight back when getting beaten up by a dude much stronger than you. Nonsense. You should kick him in the nuts before he beats you up. That'll make em' think twice at least.

On a personal note, Ive had pirates become really abusive to me when I "suggest" they should take down links of some of my online products. How can I respect a c*unt like that?
 
#18 ·
i hear ya..
i understand both sides of this..

but im on the Pirate side of this argument.. but understand why Intellectual Owners get pissed off..

the reason im for the Pirate:
* I believe in rights for Internet Use without restrictions.. if im paying 50-100 dollars/month.. there should be no restrictions.. right now.. the Internet is the only place Gov't has no control of.. if they start implementing rules/regulations.. it'll turn out like the Major News Corporations where news is filtered and controlled..
* The Pirates help promote the product by creating a buzz about the product..


The argument for Intellectual Property Owners:
* There are tons of rules/regulations in place for copyright infringements violations that the UFC does not need to sue ISP/Domains.. it's a cat & mouse game.. links are reported... new ones pop up ..
* Some say if it wasn't stopped.. everyone would watch Illegal Streams.. that's ridiculous.. so you mean to tell me people would rather stay home and watch the UFC if they had a chance to watch it live? Live streaming's quality will never be that great compared to HD/PPV .. The PPV/HD/Watching it Live crowd will continue to pay for or go to live UFC events.. Live streaming is a last resort.. it's not a choice..
 
#21 ·
A lot of people are saying piracy is impossible to stop, and right now, that is true, but it won't always be.

We should all enjoy the streams and downloads while we can, because we are living through the golden age of computer piracy.

People have had the attitude the internet is always the ultimate free exchange, and even if it shouldn't all be free, it's technologically impossible to stop it anyway, so don't worry about it.

Both of those factors are changing, albeit slowly. As more and more of modern society exists online, attitudes are starting to change about how free stuff should be. Combine an increased willingness of the service providers to assist with pursuing this kind of thing, and better technology, and you have the recipe for a drastic reduction in piracy. I won't say end of piracy, because technology cuts both ways, and the most tech savvy will probably be able to find ways around it, but the percentage of people able to do that will only get smaller from here.

Make no mistake, it is very slow, but it's happening, major corporations are losing too much money, and they will not stand for it, enjoy it while you can. The end is years away yet, but it's coming.
 
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