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Alki David Can Keep Using ‘Aero’ During Name-Game Suits With Aereo

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Wednesday March 13, 2013 @ 8:14am PDTTags: Aereo, Alki David, Barry Diller, FilmOn

UPDATE, 10:51 AM: Aereo spokesperson Virginia Lam says the company is “disappointed that the judge declined to rule on the merits on an emergency basis” but adds that it is “confident that when the merits are considered in connection with a preliminary injunction motion, Aereo will prevail.”

PREVIOUS, 8:14 AM: U.S. District Court Judge Audrey Collins yesterday denied “without prejudice” the temporary restraining order that Aereo requested as part of its trademark infringement suit against FilmOn‘s Alki David. Aereo is suing FilmOn and David for creating a site called Aero.tv that streams broadcast station programming — much like Aereo’s service. “By intentionally selecting a name that is confusingly similar to Aereo’s mark, Defendants are likely to confuse and divert consumers, inducing them to use Defendants’ business rather than Aereo’s,” the suit alleges. The company, backed by IAC chief Barry Diller, wants the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles to bar David from using the Aero name, transfer the Aero.tv domain to Aereo, and pay court costs and triple damages. David had already sued Aereo saying he has the right to its name after he recently picked up the trademark to a product called “WinTV-Aero-m” that’s been around since 2011. He warns there’ll be ”another barrage of lawsuits” if Aereo doesn’t comply.

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Aereo Sues FilmOn As It Becomes Embroiled In Alki David’s Name Game

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Thursday March 7, 2013 @ 3:52pm PSTTags: Aereo, Alki David, FilmOn

In a perfect world, FilmOn’s Alki David would stop fooling around with personal and corporate names and let the courts deal with serious questions instead of whether he’s done something to sully someone’s reputation or infringe on a trademark. … Read More »

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Alki David Plans $100M Ad Campaign To Promote FilmOn

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Friday March 1, 2013 @ 8:47am PSTTags: Alki David, FilmOn

The media industry provocateur is irked that journalists (including me) take his bete noir, Barry Diller-backed Aereo, more seriously than his FilmOn.TV. But now Alki David will bring his message directly to the public. He says that he’ll start an ad campaign in the New York tri-state area to promote his streaming service with messages on TV, online, print and outdoor. His company adds that the marketing “will also be rolled out in the coming weeks in the other 30 major U.S. markets which the FilmOn service is already freely available” including Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, Washington DC, San Francisco and Denver. David says Boston will come online next week with other cities to be added each week “thereafter.” The first TV ad shows David “driving a red Ferrari at high speed while watching TV on a mobile phone. A second commercial featuring Mike The Situation from Jersey Shore fame will appear on local television in the coming weeks.” Read More »

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Is The Latest Lawsuit From FilmOn’s Alki David Full Of Hot Aereo?

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Friday February 8, 2013 @ 2:12pm PSTTags: Aereo, Aereokiller, Alki David, BarryDriller.com, FilmOn

I’m getting a headache trying to keep track of FilmOn‘s Alki David feud with Aereo, and especially the lawsuits over who has the right to use different corporate names. David’s already defending himself in a … Read More »

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Global Showbiz Briefs: Wild Bunch’s Vincent Maraval, $1.6B In UK Digital Entertainment Sales, Alki David And Quickflix & More

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Wednesday January 2, 2013 @ 9:09pm PSTTags: Alki David, Global Showbiz Briefs, Quickflix, Silver Linings Playbook, Wild Bunch

Wild Bunch Exec Protests High Costs Of French Filmmaking
An editorial written by Wild Bunch co-founder and sales chief Vincent Maraval has whipped up a mini-storm within the French film industry. The exec, who’s had a hand in such films as The Artist, The Wrestler, Pan’s Labyrinth, Fahrenheit 9/11, City Of God and March Of The Penguins, blasted the current state of French cinema, calling 2012 a “disaster”. France enjoys possibly the world’s most generous subsidy system which relies in part on investment by local TV networks, but Maraval says “even the biggest commercial successes lose money” with budgets inflated by above the line costs. Calling France “the world record holder for the average cost of production” after the U.S., Maraval says “French actors are rich from public funds and from a system that protects the cultural exception.” Maraval cites such talent as Vincent Cassel, Jean Reno, Marion Cotillard, Guillaume Canet and Audrey Tautou and asks why they would “be paid from €500,000 to €2M ($655K to $2.62M) for a French film limited to the French market but when they shoot an American film, whose market is worldwide, they’re happy with €50,000 to €200,000 ($65.5K to $262K)? Read More »

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TV Networks Get Tentative Victory In Aereokiller Streaming Case

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Thursday December 20, 2012 @ 5:57pm PSTTags: ABC, Aereokiller, Alki David, CBS, FilmOn

ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox got a step closer today to shutting down Alki David’s online streaming of their shows. Judge George Wu granted the networks their mutually desired tentative preliminary injunction against the digital … Read More »

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Alki David Introduces Offbeat Programming On Los Angeles TV Station

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Tuesday September 11, 2012 @ 8:39am PDTTags: Alki David, FilmOn

I can’t tell whether the digital entrepreneur is spending a lot of money to goof on everybody, or whether he seriously believes he can generate a profit in strange enterprises that reflect his idiosyncratic sensibilities. In any case, Alki David is at it again today: He’s introducing a lineup of TV shows on KILM (Channel 64, formerly KHIZ) — where he has the operating rights, and which he’s calling FilmOn.TV LA. Personalities will include himself, Kato Kaelin, comedian Andy Dick, and model Janice Dickinson. ”This is true interactive television where the audience is able to vote and interact by webcam and/or mobile phone,” David says. It’s being carried locally by cable providers including Time Warner Cable, as well as by DirecTV and Dish Network. By the end of 2013 FilmOn.tv LA will be available “in a good percentage of the cable Universe and (over-the-air) in the USA, as well as major international territories,” David says. Read More »

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Barry Diller Sues Alki David Over BarryDriller

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Wednesday August 22, 2012 @ 10:40am PDTTags: Aereo, Alki David, Barry Diller, BarryDriller.com

Barry Diller is taking BarryDriller to court. In a 12-page complaint filed against Alki David and BarryDriller.com Tuesday in Los Angeles federal court (read it here) the media mogul alleges David is using his name to profit … Read More »

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NBC, ABC, And CBS File Their Own Suit Against “BarryDriller.com” Streaming Site

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Monday August 13, 2012 @ 3:17pm PDTTags: ABC, Alki David, Big Deals TV, CBS, FilmOn, NBC

UPDATE, 6:30 PM: The lawyer for Aereokiller LLC — the Alki David company behind BarryDriller.com — wrote a letter to NBC’s lawyer today saying that the streaming site will suspend carriage of KNBC “pending an orderly resolution … Read More »

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Fox Charges “BarryDriller.com” Streaming Service With Copyright Infringement

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Saturday August 11, 2012 @ 8:19pm PDTTags: Aereo, Alki David, Fox

Digital entrepreneur Alki David has a characteristically tough sounding response to the suit against his BarryDriller streaming video service that Fox filed yesterday at U.S. District Court in California. ”Bring it on Fox, you have no idea what you have just done,” he says. But the company’s case against BarryDriller is consistent with the arguments that Fox and other broadcasters have raised against Aereo — the Barry Diller-backed service that also offers subscribers online streams of over-the-air programming. The complaint notes that since Tuesday the defendant, BarryDriller Content Systems, has infringed on Fox’s copyrights and trademarks by retransmitting its broadcast shows without the company’s permission. It specifically cites Fox-owned shows taken from KABC, and KTTV. “The rights to transmit Plaintiffs’ programming over the Internet and to portable devices are extremely valuable,” Fox says. It wants the court to enjoin the BarryDriller service and require it to pay unspecified damages. David and Aereo have said they’re just offering programming that broadcasters already make available for free. Fox says, though, that “No amount of technological gimmickry by Defendants changes the fundamental principle of copyright law that those who wish to retransmit Plaintiffs’ broadcasts may do so only with Plaintiffs’ authority.” Read More »

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The Alki David Story Grows Weirder: What’s Up With “BarryDriller.com”?

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Thursday August 9, 2012 @ 1:03pm PDTTags: Alki David, Big Deals TV

Yeah, the video streaming site is named after IAC/InterActiveCorp CEO Barry Diller — a backer of the Aereo streaming video service — but with an “r” added to the last name. And digital entrepreneur Alki David says he offered this week to pay the major broadcast networks for the right to include their programming on the site — which he insists will become a major, Aereo-like service that will have promotional help from Charlie Sheen and Ice T. The networks should do business with him and his company FilmOn, according to a letter that he says he sent to them this week, because “There is little doubt that the proverbial genie is out of the bottle and that what benefits the consumer is for that genie to remain at large.” Will the networks play ball? Of course not. They just got him to agree to a settlement involving two lawsuits: He promised to pull the plug on a subscription streaming service that used their over-the-air signals without their permission, and pay them $1.6M, to resolve copyright infringement claims they raised against him in 2010. In addition, he agreed to extract himself from a separate suit that he initiated against CBS Interactive, which he alleged distributed software for Limewire — a peer-to-peer file sharing service that was itself found guilty of inducing users to infringe on copyrights. Read More »

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UPDATE: Alki David Vows To Keep Fighting CBS As He Plans Aereo-Like Business

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Wednesday August 1, 2012 @ 2:15pm PDTTags: Alki David, Big Deals Film, Big Deals TV, CBS, FilmOn

UPDATE, 3:35 PM: The settlement deal that Alki David signed with CBS and other broadcasters in two copyright infringement cases is “back off,” he tells me. CBS “renegged” on the agreement by releasing it in a way designed to embarrass him, he says. “If they want to do that, I’m reneging on any agreement and I’m fighting them.” He signed the settlement on July 27 because it only required him to withdraw from his copyright infringement suit against CBS — meaning that it could continue without him. Also he says he wants to do business with CBS and other broadcasters in a new enterprise similar to Aereo. But now he says that he’s “going to go all out to drag [CBS] through the court system,” charging that the broadcaster has a “culture of deceit and underhandedness.” CBS declined to respond. Read More »

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