Roy Jones Jr. Goes for TKO vs. Piracy

A boxing-promotion company owned by Roy Jones Jr., Square Ring Promotions, is looking to score a technical knockout against live-video-streaming service Ustream, alleging in a copyright-infringement lawsuit that Ustream is guilty of “massive and blatant copyright infringement” for permitting 2,377 users to view a broadcast of the March 21 fight between Jones and Omar Sheika without paying, TechCrunch reported.

The suit also claimed that Ustream ignored repeated requests by Square Ring to gather more information and detailed Square Ring’s attempts to protect the event from piracy.

From the lawsuit:

Following the illegal exhibition of Plaintiff’s Copyrighted Broadcast on USTREAM’s website on March 21, 2009, notifying Defendants of the copyright and trademark infringements and, in a good faith effort to avoid litigation, requested information pursuant to Rules 26 and 34 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Plaintiff’s letter further advised Defendants that, to Plaintiff’s knowledge, they permitted approximately 2,377 users to view Plaintiff’s pay-per-view program completely free of charge, in violation of Plaintiff’s rights. To date, Defendants have neither complied with Plaintiff’s request nor responded to Plaintiff’s letter.

Ustream told TechCrunch:

Ustream is serious about complying with the copyright laws and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and we’re aggressively taking short- and long-term steps to work with the content industry to meet their needs. We believe the Square Ring lawsuit does not have merit and that we’re fully protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act Safe Harbor provisions.

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