Top Rank President Todd duBoef said that the company "plans to pursue legal action following widespread piracy of Saturday's Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight on video-sharing smartphone apps and websites," according to Stuart Pfeifer of the L.A. TIMES. Many people "watched streams of the fight on video-sharing apps such as Periscope" instead of buying the PPV feed. Periscope is a smartphone app that allows users to share live video, and people who bought the fight "were able to record it with their smartphones and stream it live on Periscope and other sites." duBoef said that Top Rank, co-promoter of the fight alongside Mayweather Productions, "will go after individuals who streamed the fight and the companies that provided the platforms to do so" (L.A. TIMES, 5/4). VARIETY's Andrew Wallenstein noted countless people who paid for the fight used their smartphones to "re-transmit the fight to users of Periscope and, to a lesser extent, rival app Meerkat." Each stream "reached hundreds or thousands of non-paying fans with a picture quality that was shaky and pixilated, yet still quite adequate." If Twitter CEO Dick Costolo "understood the implications of this activity, he sure didn’t show it in a tweet that declared Periscope the 'winner' of the night." The app "got tremendous exposure" from the activity during Saturday's fight, but "the price of all that publicity may end up too steep if the content companies come after him." Live-streaming "has never been treated as serious a piracy threat as torrent sites or content lockers, but that looks about to change" (VARIETY.com, 5/3). USA TODAY's Mike Snider notes HBO and Showtime "had taken legal action in advance against some web sites that promised to illegally show the fight." As soon as the fight began, "multiple live stream feeds of the action appeared on Meerkat and Periscope." New streams "would start each round of the bout" (USA TODAY, 5/4).
UP PERISCOPE: MASHABLE's Christina Warren wrote under the header, "I Watched The Pacquiao-Mayweather Fight On Periscope And Saw The Future." The number of streams "was almost overwhelming." Warren wrote based on a map on Periscope that she saw, there appeared to be "streams from all over the world" (MASHABLE.com, 5/3). CNET's Jessica Dolcourt noted a lawsuit "would be Twitter's first legal case against Periscope; the social network only acquired the streaming startup in mid-March." Like "other forms of peer-based piracy, any action taken against Twitter for Periscope streams involves users sharing content they likely consider 'theirs' for free, and from their own living rooms." The fact that Costolo "used his company's own social platform to congratulate Periscope is perhaps the night's most damaging jab, and one aimed squarely at Big Boxing" (CNET.com, 5/3). Periscope co-Founder & CEO Kayvon Beykpour last night tweeted, "Piracy does not excite us. Trust me, we respect IP rights & had many people working hard to be responsive last night (including myself)" (TWITTER.com, 5/3). Chicago-based consulting firm A.T. Kearney Partner & Head of Communications Naveen Menon said Periscope “was a big winner” after the exposure it gained Saturday (“The Rundown,” CNBC, 5/3). NewYorker.com Editor Nicholas Thompson said while this is copyright infringement, the networks “aren’t going to attack individual users but they’re going to try to shutdown accounts that do it frequently” (“CBS This Morning,” 5/4).
AS FOR THOSE WHO DID BUY...: The AP's Scott Mayerowitz reported Saturday night's fight "was delayed about 30 minutes because of high pay-per-view demand causing problems for cable and satellite systems." Fight announcer Jim Lampley said that an "'electronic overload' caused cable and satellite operators to ask for a delay." PPV issues prompted "scores of angry tweets directed at various providers" (AP, 5/3). ESPN.com's Darren Rovell reported the beginning of the fight "was delayed by about 45 minutes to help fix the pay-per-view issues," with the fighters entering the ring at 11:45pm ET. Fans "reported issues" with Optimum, DirecTV, Charter, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and AT&T. Problems "ranged from issues with ordering, to pixilated screens, to screens going to black after the broadcast had started" (ESPN.com, 5/2). HBO Senior VP/Sports Operations & PPV Mark Taffet said, "It was simply an unprecedented number of fans buying more amounts than we’ve ever seen in PPV history. So we had to slow down the telecast for orders to be processed." In N.Y., Mitch Abramson reports Taffet at one point before the fight "could be seen stepping in the ring to inform the ring announcers Michael Buffer and Jimmy Lennon Jr. to put down their mikes to pause the show" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 5/4). ESPN’s Darren Rovell: “This was a main concern of HBO and Showtime and the cable providers. They tried to get people to order ahead of time. ... I'm not sure if we're ever going to know how many people lost the fight, gave up. We're going to see records here, but there could be money left on the table for HBO, Showtime, the providers and maybe the boxers themselves” (“SportsCenter,” ESPN, 5/2). In St. Louis, Lisa Brown reported a website showing outages from Charter Communications across the country "highlighted St. Louis; Asheville, N.C.; and parts of South Carolina as the most-impacted regions" (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 5/3). Charter's outages "included many channels other than the fight channel." Service reportedly "was out from approximately 8 p.m. [CT], when the undercard telecasts began, until about 11:30 p.m. -- well into the bout." Refunds "will be given to affected customers who request one" (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 5/4).
THE CALL FROM RINGSIDE: In N.Y., Richard Sandomir writes the announcers who called the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight "did not succumb to hyperbole." The pleasant surprise was "how well Al Bernstein, the Showtime analyst," worked with HBO's Lampley. They "were so engaging together that fight fans should wish for more joint broadcasts." Bernstein and, "to a lesser extent, Roy Jones Jr. of HBO provided some excellent analysis, particularly in describing how Mayweather was thwarting Pacquiao’s strategy to overwhelm his opponent with torrents of punches." What "was apparent throughout the broadcast was Bernstein’s ability to communicate his boxing knowledge easily and clearly and engage in a friendly conversation with Lampley." But Jones "struggled to have his voice clearly understood," and the audio "made it difficult to hear him." The on-screen production "was strong, particularly the jarring corner close-ups and the super-slow-motion replays and graphics that Bernstein used to describe strategy" (N.Y. TIMES, 5/4). Meanwhile, YAHOO SPORTS' Kevin Iole reported PPV buying trends "were encouraging." Top Rank Chair Bob Arum said, "This figure is going to be enormous. Four, four-and-a-half, five (million). I don’t want to say anything. We’ll know soon enough. But it is going to be huge" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 5/3).
