Joe Hand Seeks Statutory Damages for Pirating of 8 UFC, Boxing Broadcasts

Long Wongs, a wings and burger restaurant in Chandler, Arizona, exhibited eight Ultimate Fighting Championship and boxing pay-per-view broadcasts for its customers between January 2019 and March 2023 without a sublicense or authorization to do so, alleged rights holder Joe Hand Promotions in a Communications Act complaint Thursday (docket 2:24-cv-00538) in U.S. District Court for Arizona in Phoenix. The suit names the establishment and its owners, Victor Martinez and Edgar Martinez, as defendants. The broadcasts originated via satellite uplink and were retransmitted interstate to cable systems and satellite television companies via satellite signal, said the complaint. The interstate satellite transmissions were electronically scrambled and weren’t “available to or intended for the free use of the general public,” it said. The broadcasts were legally available to the defendants for a commercial sublicense fee, determined by the capacity of the establishment, it said. But the defendants chose not to contract with Joe Hand and instead “took affirmative steps to circumvent the commercial sublicensing requirement" and unlawfully obtained each of the broadcasts, it said. The defendants “willfully engaged in wrongful acts” to intercept each of the broadcasts for free, while Joe Hand’s “legitimate customers paid substantially more for the proper commercial sublicenses,” it said. The complaint seeks statutory damages of up to the maximum of $110,000 for each willful violation.