HBO & Showtime File Lawsuit To Block Live Streams Of Pacquiao Vs. Mayweather Fight

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A screengrab from the lawsuit filed yesterday against boxinghd.net and sportship.org.

In case you hadn’t fallen victim to the pummeling from ads, news stories, and seemingly countless documentaries that have aired in recent weeks, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao are set to square off in a Las Vegas boxing ring this weekend in a bout co-produced by Showtime and HBO. The fight won’t actually be airing live on either network; you’ll have to pony up $100 to watch it on pay-per-view. That’s why the two premium networks, along with the fight’s promoters, have filed suit to preemptively block websites from live-streaming the event.

The plaintiffs file the complaint [PDF] yesterday in a federal court in California. It accuses the operators of two sites, boxinghd.net and sportship.org of advertising “an unauthorized live Internet stream” of the much-ballyhooed bout.

One site tells visitors, “[I]f you can’t afford to buy tickets then simply watch Mayweather vs Pacquiao here. We will provide with nothing but the freshest and the most reliable high quality live links,” and claims “there are lots of alternatives that you can watch the fight live… You can watch the full fight via live stream in this website. The live streaming will commence when the fight starts.”

Clicking on the link for the live stream on boxinghd takes you to the other defendant site, where, according to the suit, “In order to gain access to the stream, users must click through one or more ‘offers’ that promote the goods and services of third parties. Plaintiffs are informed and believe that Defendants use these advertisements to monetize their websites.”

The plaintiffs say that the sole purpose of these two sites is to infringe on their copyright.

“[T]he only content on Defendants’ websites promotes and/or monetizes their intention to infringe Plaintiffs’ rights by streaming the Coverage without authorization,” reads the complaint.

As of this morning, we were unable to access any content on either of the URLs named in the lawsuit.

The fight is expected to bring in upwards of $300 million for all involved.

[via Bloomberg]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist