Justin.tv Not Guilty Of 'Stealing Cable' When Users Stream UFC Matches

from the good-ruling dept

Last year, we wrote about how Zuffa, the parent company of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was suing Justin.tv because some of its users streamed UFC matches. As we noted at the time, we couldn't see how Zuffa would get past the DMCA's safe harbors. Apparently, Zuffa tried to get around that by being way too creative for its own good and the court has now shut down those efforts. Basically, Zuffa focused on two areas not covered (or not clearly covered) by safe harbors. The first is trademark, which is neither covered by the DMCA's safe harbors nor Section 230's safe harbors -- though, many courts have accepted similar rules that limit liability to third party service providers anyway. In this case, the court is extremely skeptical of the trademark claims, in part because it seemed clear that Zuffa was merely trying to use trademark law as if it were a "mutant copyright law," which courts have rejected in the past.

The other attempt to get around safe harbors was to use the Communications Act, which has rules against "intercepting cable." Justin.tv actually suggested that Section 230's safe harbors should protect it from that claim -- which makes sense -- but the court doesn't want to touch that argument. Instead, it just says that the basic idea that Justin.tv is illegally intercepting cable doesn't make any sense -- and notes, again, that it appears to be Zuffa seeking to do an end-run around copyright law:
In essence, Zuffa alleges that Justin.tv’s users copied Zuffa’s UFC event and then rebroadcast the UFC event over the internet. This is not the type of conduct properly addressed by the Communications Act, but by copyright law (and, potentially, trademark law) because Justin.tv had no relationship with the original cable or satellite signal: by the allegations, Justin.tv did not receive or intercept any actual cable or satellite signal or broadcast. The Court finds no evidence in the statutory language, other cases, or legislative history that the Communications Act addresses this type of conduct or was meant to bolster or act as a separate type of copyright claim.
Furthermore, as Eric Goldman highlights in the link above, there's a further footnote discussion in which the court notes that if Zuffa's "stealing cable" argument made sense, it would open up a whole host of legal issues against pretty much all cloud computing:
if the Court were to allow claims such as these, it would have to allow similar Communications Act claims against scores of “cloud computing” service providers such as Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon.com, Dropbox, Box.net, and others because Jusint.tv’s [sic] particular streaming service would be irrelevant. As an example, say a person took a snippet (or longer) of video of a UFC match being broadcast on their television with their iPhone, Windows Phone, etc. The iPhone then automatically uploads that video to one of dozens of cloud storage systems such as Apple’s iCloud. The Court refuses to find that Apple (or Microsoft, etc.) would be liable under the Communications Act for merely receiving and storing this data under the Communications Act. Yet, Zuffa arguesfor exactly this result when it argues that Justin.tv’s mere receipt of this video stream makes Justin.tv liable. In passing the Communications Act, Congress did not intend such a result, and this Court will not broaden the effect of the statute in this manner.
Nice to see a court recognize the troubling implications of such a crazy argument.
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Filed Under: copyright, safe harbors, stealing cable, ultimate fighting
Companies: justin.tv, zuffa


Reader Comments

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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2012 @ 12:36pm

    Praise God.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2012 @ 12:51pm

    Lets see, what can the shills latch onto here....

    I'm gonna guess it's something about the court/judge in question, how this means nothing, and how the "good guys" will win in the end, since this is just another ploy by Big Search and Big Piracy to hurt the little guys (the RIAA).

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      hothmonster, 20 Mar 2012 @ 1:36pm

      Re: Lets see, what can the shills latch onto here....

      Don't forget Big Hardware. Bob gets upset if you forget his strap-on.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    V (profile), 20 Mar 2012 @ 1:05pm

    Tech savy, intelligent judges?

    What's next... honest politicians?!
    .
    .
    .
    .
    NAH....

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2012 @ 1:08pm

    I think most of the truly "honest politicians" died with the Federalist Party. If not then, then shortly after the party system came into effect.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Ninja (profile), 20 Mar 2012 @ 1:26pm

    After the zediva ruling (cord length, remember?) I truly expected this to go awfully wrong. You know, the concept of the intertubes working as a massively long cord and that length configuring a public performance is just as probable as justin.tv stealing the cable via their users streaming...

    But it seems they weren't under Texan jurisdiction. I mean, jurisdiction can be a bitch in the US, logic and reasoning playing no role in any decision.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Mr. Smarta** (profile), 20 Mar 2012 @ 1:29pm

    *entertainment industry CEOs run to Obama*

    "Daddy! Daddy! They're being mean to us! We need more laws. Please changes the laws for us, Daddy! They're taking away our balls."

    -------
    Of course, in this scenario the word 'balls' actually means the toy... probably not what you might be thinking right now. This is just satire.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      DannyB (profile), 20 Mar 2012 @ 2:54pm

      Re:

      The entertainment industry has no balls.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      balaknair, 20 Mar 2012 @ 11:30pm

      Response to: Mr. Smarta** on Mar 20th, 2012 @ 1:29pm

      I don't think the ceos would call Obama daddy, more likely the other way around.
      "Who's your daddy, Barack, who's your daddy? That's right, I am. Now change those laws for us boy."

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2012 @ 6:03pm

    Mutant copyright law... I like that descriptor. Could Mike get a patent or trademark or copyright on that?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Mar 2012 @ 6:19pm

    Dick Nose award goes to...

    Zuffa!

    FU scumbags

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Johny Yario0, 21 Mar 2012 @ 4:25am

    ZUFA should be in jail, aren't they a MOB from VEGAS? Pathetic bald headed scumbags.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Mar 2012 @ 7:18am

    Just remember that this is a VERY narrow victory, only stating that they aren't specifically guilty of one way of looking at things. The reality is they are still distributing copyright content without permission, just using the old SODDI defense to say they aren't the ones ACTUALLY doing it.

    At some point, a smart judge will wake up and realize that sites like this (and file lockers, etc) are not just innocent tool makers, but in fact required cogs in the machine to make this sort of copyright violation possible. Further, someone will key on the idea that without the copyright material, most of these sites would be about as popular as a Marcus Carab concert (ie, not at all). Without the dangling prize of "free stuff that you would have to pay for otherwise", most of these sites wouldn't exist.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 21 Mar 2012 @ 7:26am

      Re:

      I called it!

      "Lets see, what can the shills latch onto here....
      Anonymous Coward, Mar 20th, 2012 @ 12:51pm

      I'm gonna guess it's something about the court/judge in question, how this means nothing, and how the "good guys" will win in the end, since this is just another ploy by Big Search and Big Piracy to hurt the little guys (the RIAA)."

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 21 Mar 2012 @ 8:11am

        Re: Re:

        Yep. I also notice that the shills (shill?) is trying to needle Marcus about his "musical career", completely ignoring the fact that Marcus is a writer, and music is his hobby. This is at least the second post along those lines I've seen.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Matthew Holloway, 21 Mar 2012 @ 6:33pm

    Source for this?

    "it seemed clear that Zuffa was merely trying to use trademark law as if it were a "mutant copyright law," which courts have rejected in the past."

    Source? I've heard officials say that movie file sharing is not only copyright infringement but it's also breaking trademark because of company logos in the intro.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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