Triller is taking the Dana White approach to stop people from illegally viewing their pay-per-view events, but they are taking it to the next level.
If you watched an illegal stream of April’s Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren boxing match, then Triller is trying to give you last chance to pay for what you saw.
Last week, the upstart promotion announced it had filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California “against certain parties who participated in the unlawful sale, distribution, and/or viewing of the April 17, 2021 pay-per-view event known as ‘Triller Fight Club: Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren.’”
“VPNs all have to comply and turn over the actual IP addresses of each person who stole the fight in discovery,” Triller head of piracy Matt St. Claire told Reuters.com. “We will be able to identify each and every person, VPN or not, as each stream has a unique fingerprint embedded in the content.”
Triller Fight Club officials stated that under U.S. copyright law, anyone found to have pirated the pay-per-view could be liable for up to $150,000 in fines, penalties and damages.
However, the promotion is offering an easy fix for anybody “who unlawfully viewed or displayed the event but were not otherwise involved in its illegal sale or distribution” by paying original price of $49.99 before June 1st. Those who want to go ahead and do that by taking advantage of the “one-time settlement and release for their unlawful acts” can pay at Fite.tv.
“We are taking this position because it is outright theft,” St. Claire said. “It is no different than walking into a store and stealing a video game off the shelf.”
“In the case of the offending sites, it’s worse because they also then resold it to many people, illegally profiting from work they do not own,” St. Claire said.
The initial lawsuit filed was seeking $100 million in damages.
