I think that fight events are far less subject to piracy actually removing sales than music and films are - and both of them are proven that piracy isn't anywhere near the problem the publishers claim it is.

For anyone who is a) able to, and b) can afford it, they will "usually" always get the live, high-quality PPV and make an evening of it and enjoy it. Yes, there will be a percentage who can afford to and want the event, but won't pay, and so download. But how many of them can really be converted into sales? If someone can't/won't pay for your product you can't make any money off them.

For those who can't afford the PPV, they wouldn't have bought it anyway. So that's not a lost sale.

For those of us who don't live in the USA the internet is the staple way to get stuff and we can't order the PPV anyway (we can get it live, but only if you pay a subscription - and either way we don't pay directly to the UFC). So anyone ouside the USA downloading the event is not money lost for the UFC.

Then, for UFC Fight Night, WEC, Strikeforce, and all the Japanese events, they're on regular TV anyway (again, subscriptions may apply, but no payment from the viewer to the UFC), so again no lost sale.

Where in all these sales that were never profitable in the first place are they saying all this downloading is hurting their margins?

And that's not to mention the fact that this sport was established, built up, kept alive, monetised, and spread on tape trading and then the internet allowing fights to be seen. Without file-sharing this sport would have died in the USA in the pre-Zuffa days, meaning no spread into Europe and other territories (except Japan and Brazil). Bit rich of them to turn around and stab fans in the back so soon after getting genuinely stable and profitable...

And I'd say that for every organisation barring Zuffa, file-trading is still required in order to build the sport and their brand further. Smacks of Zuffa actually trying to limit competition rather than reduce piracy.

I cry a river for wealthy, penny counting capitalists. Keep bitching along these lines and like the music industry, fans will steal your product just to spite you!

When I first saw the topic, I was trying to decide if I was going to be seeing a thread about a stream broadcasting UFC battles 24/7 or the UFC going after streamers. Now I know.

Pursuing internet trading only makes the problem worse. When you tell people they can't do something relatively harmless that they enjoy doing, those people will tend to find a way around it or become a such a thorny problem to deal with that it wasn't worth it. Just look at the movie and music industry. Sales were at record levels until they started hunting people down. Only then, did sales begin to plummet. People still pirated, but refused to pay an overzealous company hellbent on every single penny/yen/mark.

Some people feel that after shelling out >= $45, they should at least get to watch it more than once.

The UFC isn't the movie or music industries, though. If they want to take action against live streams, I really don't see a huge problem with that. That is their primary source of revenue. But if they want to shut down all internet trading, they're itching for a fight they can't possibly win.

Joe said it best: "You can't stop the internet, baby!"