Following the case against Nginx, the Rambler company launches another one. This time against the streaming service Twitch. The latter is accused of distributing pirated broadcasts. Rambler plans to recover 180 billion rubles ($2.9 billion) from the American giant.
This is reported by the newspaper Kommersant. According to her, the rights to show English Premier League matches in Russia are at the center of the conflict. The latter were acquired by Rambler in the spring of 2019. The deal could amount to €7 million.
Despite the acquired rights, Russian users could follow the Premier League and bypass the Rambler services. Twitch users actively streamed the tournament. This situation, apparently, greatly angered the leadership of the Russian Internet company.
Now Rambler is demanding to block Twitch in Russia and, as mentioned earlier, to collect astronomical compensation from the service amounting to almost three billion dollars.
According to Kommersant, initially (in August) the lawsuit was only about blocking the service in Russia. Then the company decided to demand €2.1 million. After a while, the figure grew to the specified billions.
This amount did not come from scratch. Rambler calculated the number of Premier League broadcasts on Twitch (there were 36 thousand of them), and then multiplied them by the maximum amount of compensation, which is 5 million rubles in Russia.
In an interview with our colleagues, lawyers admitted that such a case has many pitfalls. It will be difficult for Rambler to confirm each of the violations. Plus, the company had to inform Twitch about the violations. Without this information, there may not be a violation.
We will find out how serious the situation can turn out on December 20. On this date, the consideration of the Rambler’s lawsuit against Twitch in the Moscow City Court is scheduled.
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According to the interlocutors of Kommersant, the lawsuit against Twitch, which today is the main platform for gaming streams, as well as one of the most important marketing tools for “big” games, may turn out to be an attack against YouTube. If the court sides with Rambler, then blocking the Google video service will also be possible.
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