The Conor McGregor-Floyd Mayweather, Jr. fight is just a little more than a couple of weeks away, but there are already websites that are promoting that they will be streaming it live on August 26. But the problem is that these streams are illegal. Showtime is offering its own stream and the pay cable network wants consumers to pay for this rather than going to websites that have pirated feeds.
So as McGregor and Mayweather get set to square off in a once-in-a-lifetime bout between a MMA fighter and a boxer, Showtime is going after more than 40 websites that have said that they plan to stream the fight. And as part of the pay cable network’s lawsuits, it is claiming that the sites are using creative ways to get noticed by search engines:
The latest
The sites are “all currently formatted as Mayweather v. McGregor blogs populated with articles that are stuffed with keywords related to the fight,” writes attorney Dennis Wilson. “Plaintiff alleges that Defendants have engaged in such keyword stuffing as a form of search engine optimization in an effort to attract as much web traffic as possible in the form of Internet users searching for a way to access a live stream of the Fight.”
And thanks to this, Showtime claims that the sites can appear right at the top of user’s web searches. The network says it expects that these sites will have links to destinations that will have streams of the fight.
Showtime is seeking court injunctions against these sites. And it’s done this before back in 2015 when Mayweather fought Manny Pacquiao. At that time, HBO and Showtime partnered on the pay per view and were successful in stopping several websites from streaming that fight.
So Showtime is hoping that it can win another round in court to stop more potential illegal streams protecting its property.
