Sports Capital Ventures, Inc. Files DMCA Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Univision Communications, Inc.

http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2004/10/emw171878.htm
DMCA Copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Univision.com, the flagship website property of Univision Communications, Inc.

(PRWEB) October 26, 2004 -- Sports Capital Ventures (SCV), Inc., the publisher of CentroDeportivo.com, an online Spanish sports magazine, has filed a lawsuit in United States District Court of Maryland (Case No. 8:04-cv-02937, Presiding Judge Hon. Marvin J. Garbis) alleging copyright infringement and unfair competition against Univision.com, the flagship website property of Univision Communications, Inc (Univision).

'We tried to settle this matter amicably' said Jorge Martinez, president of SCV, 'but Univision refused, and continues to allow its users to violate SCV’s copyrights.'

At issue is the double standard of Univision, one of the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) most prominent members. The RIAA and Univision are quick to bring their financial weight and big-firm legal talent down upon anyone seen to be violating their copyrights, such as music file sharing websites. In fact, both RIAA and Univision have argued in recent court cases that an ISP (website) should have no immunity from a copyright infringement claim on the basis of its asserted 'passive' conduct, and that once an ISP has notice that it is hosting infringing material, it is obligated to police the website for further infringements.

When its own conduct is in question, however, Univision’s lawyers have taken the position that its posting of copyrighted photographs is not truly 'copying'; rather Univision is merely a 'conduit for or to would-be copiers and have no interest in the copy itself.'

Since October, 2003, Martinez has observed approximately fifty of Plaintiff’s photographs wrongfully posted on Univision.com’s forums requiring SCV to spend considerable time monitoring the Univision.com site and sending “Takedown Notices” as required by the Digitial Millenium Copyright Act. All of these photographs are clearly marked as being owned by Centrodeportivo.com, yet Univision’s moderators have deliberately allowed their posting.

SCV also discovered that Univision.com was enabling other sites to 'hotlink' to these files. Conversely, Defendants’ software automatically disables any link in a forum thread pointing to Plaintiff's website, to prevent a site visitor from leaving Defendant's site to visit the source of the photograph.

SCV believes that many site visitors come to the Univision forum just to see the infringing sports photographs, and many join Univision.com to comment on these pictures. Such visitors see the advertisements on the Univision.com site, not the advertisements on Plaintiff’s website, and these visitors are lost to Centrodeportivo. These visitors also constitute “hits” which enable Univision.com to charge higher rates to its advertisers.

'To our knowledge our clearly copyrighted content, and the copyrighted content property of many other sites on the web, still can be found on Univision.com,' explained Martinez. 'While this kind of legal action is costly for a small company like ours, we believe the long term benefits far outweight all the hardship it may cause us.'

This should be good.

giggle *smirk*

i see no humor in this.

the sheer volume of frivolous litigation is what is preventing us from pulling out of our abysmal economic state.

In the mean time, the consumers are still screwed.

I love it when this happens

awehr,

I would agree with you except I get too much pleasure out of watching the RIAA get sued for copyright infringement.

man, what happened to just settling things at the end of a bat. See, when the mafia ruled things, they didn't have these stupid lawsuits.

Pirates!!!!....Thieves!!!!.....Lock 'em up!!!!

OK, That's about all I can stomache in support of of criminalizing Copyright Infringment.

Although, I do agree its pretty funny. And this is probably the only scenario where you will find the RIAA on the same side of the table that we're on! We should savor the experience

I wonder if we'll next discover that Univision is sharing these things on p2p?

And when the RIAA win this one, their
successful legal argument sets precedent
in OUR favor

you know its all over once they start fighting amongst themselves
like resistance which parts it self
liberation goes out the window..
as for riaa,s kase
tehy have just made pavement to the road that will fuck them in to extinction
so much for a collaberative effort to stop filesharng
they.ll get nothing done by fightingtjemselves
i8 hope they sue each other to extinction

" ...sending “Takedown Notices” as required by the Digitial Millenium Copyright Act."
This is interesting. Did any of the people being sued by members of the RIAA get any type of notice saying 'remove' before they were sued?
Isn't it nice how the RIAA can break the very laws they paid to have put in play?