Last October, Torrentfreak reported that lawyers working on behalf of Fox Broadcasting showed up at the Canadian residence of a 23-year-old running a website streaming episodes of The Simpsons for free.
Lawyers allegedly confiscated all of the man’s electronic equipment and tossed the young fella documents detailing a pending pirating lawsuit with his name on it seeking $10.5 million dollars in damages. The suit also covered material on another website, run by the same young man, which provided the same service to fans of Family Guy.
The two websites — Watch The Simpsons Online and Watch Family Guy Online — are now defunct. In their prime, the sites welcomed a combined 87 million visitors in just a few short years of existence. It was enough to get the attention of Fox brass.
As is always the case, the entity with the most money wins. But, Fox wasn’t done.
The Simpsons went so far as to poke fun at the lawsuit in a recent episode. Vice magazine breaks down the specific episode and caught up with “Nick,” the man behind the streaming websites. Vice asked him about the lawsuit and the odd personal vendetta Fox has against the young Canuck.
Nick referred to FOX’s crusade against him as an “unneeded vendetta” and described at length how this trial has affected his life. “They are getting every penny from my house sale and that’s really all I have for them… I was in significant debt with credit card companies and hardly able to keep on top of many of my bills, but they were trying to paint a picture as though I made half a million dollars per year with the thing.”
In an effort to stop the bleeding, Nick is considering filing for bankruptcy. He hopes it will fend off Fox’s lawyers and he won’t have to pay back the remainder of money owed.
Via Vice
