The FilmOn-CBS Court Battle Continues
Fox, CBS, ABC and NBC have filed suit and obtained a restraining order against FilmOn, a video broadcaster, the latter having apparently transmitted programs without prior consent from the first.
FilmOn’s founder, Alki David, not only denies malice involving any violation of the copyright law, but also accuses CBS of hypocrisy and viciousness since “through its subsidiary CNET, CBS has allegedly distributed over one billion pirate illegal file sharing software, as well as DRM cracking software.” The worst, according to Alki David, is the fact that this whole deal is ostensible as “even the editors’ notes tell you what to do and how good that software is.”
At the moment, FilmOn is also encountering issues with their legal representative who has withdrawn from the case due to ‘irreconcilable conflict with Alki David’. Yet, to make wrong right, FilmOn also announced last week the signing of a deal with a small-cable company, FTTH Communications which seems to be the most auspicious deal ever for FilmOn.
FilmOn is not a singular case in which video-redistributors are accused of violating copyright law; iviTV and GoogleTV share a similar experience, the latter having been sued by Viacom in the past.
As we mentioned, the Viacom and other broadcasters’ attitude does not concern copyrights laws, yet they are an attempt at controlling the web distribution of video content. Judging by what happened in the music industry, a growing number of lawsuits are expected in the broadcasting industry in the following period, a situation which affects the whole media industry.
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