Boxing promoter Dean Lonergan sounds determined to find and bill the "lowlifes" who put Joseph Parker's big fight online for free. A spokeswoman for Sky television, which had bought the sole right to screen the event and charged its subscribers an additional $50 to watch it, says it is able to track illegal live-streaming and it also planned to take action. Both may be bluffing but good luck to them.
Those who found a free feed of the fight probably felt very pleased with themselves, even righteous about what they had done. The internet has bred a curious sense of entitlement to practically anything that can be found there.
That knowledge that those involved in its production need to make money from it seems to heighten the justification. They tell themselves the pay per view charge was too much, which it was not. A $50 fee was perfectly reasonable, reflecting the value of an event which turned out to be more gripping than perhaps the free viewers had expected when they had the chance to buy the feed.
More important, the fee would have reflected the sum Sky paid to Parker and his promoters, Lonergan's company Duco, who in turn had to provide Parker's opponent with the sum required to put up a contest of this calibre.
If Duco and its young boxer had a big payday, they are in a business where they have to work long and hard for it. Those who watched for nothing will not want to think about the months of training Parker has put in, they prefer to think it is the business behind him they are ripping off.
