Variety: VidAngel Hit with $62.4 Million Judgment for Pirating Movies

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June 17, 2019

By: Gene Maddaus

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Source: Variety

“A jury on Monday ordered VidAngel to pay $62.4 million to Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. for streaming hundreds of movies on its service without permission.

“U.S. District Judge Andre Birotte had already ruled that VidAngel’s service was illegal, leaving the jurors to decide only the amount of damages. VidAngel ripped movies from DVD copies, and then streamed them to users with offensive content filtered out.

“VidAngel is already in bankruptcy in Utah, and has about $2.2 million in the bank. The jury’s verdict — if it is upheld — could force the company into liquidation. Harmon said he planned to appeal.”

Read the entire article at Variety

Why it matters: This is a case where the video pirate maintained a streaming service with copies of the video content.  Pirates that embed URLs (instead of hosting the actual content) are a different story and based on a recent decision in Spain, can still get away with that.

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