Today it was reported by LightReading that Omniverse is shutting down and looking to unload its equipment and other assets. Omniverse also filed new court documents in what looks like an effort to blame HovSat for any possible infringement.
Back in February 2019, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) filed a lawsuit saying Omniverse the company that powers many live TV streaming services including the HDHomeRun Premium TV, SkyStream TV, TikiLive, and more allowing them to access channels like ESPN and Disney do not have the rights to this content. ACE’s members include some of the biggest names in TV and many others with the goal of protecting their works.
“To the extent there was any infringement, such infringement was, on information and belief, without malice or bad intent by Omniverse or its management and was caused or contributed to by third-parties such as HovSat,” Omniverse said to the court in a new filing this week.
According to Omniverse, it was “understood” that HovSat “was licensed to distribute live TV under a distribution agreement or series of agreements between HovSat (or Hovnanian affiliates) and DirecTV.”
Earlier Omniverse had claimed that they had a 100-year deal through a contract between HovSat and DIRECTV. Now though it seems that no one can find that contract. “It is not known if such records will be found in discovery or not,” Omniverse said. “Mr. Hovnanian [the owner of HovSat] is apparently in Armenia and his attorneys have not come forward to support the legal position of HovSat.”
This all comes as Omniverse who use to sell through services Flixon, TikiLive, Vista TV, Clikia, VivaLiveTV, HDHomeRun Premium TV, SkyStream, and more shut down its residential service. Instead, they said they would focus on multifamily units but now that seems to also be going away. Now going to OmniGo’s website just takes you to a PDC of a May 24th filing in the court case.
The Omniverse case is far from over as ACE is asking for a September 20th, 2019 date to end discovery but Omniverse is asking for January 24th, 2020. Omniverse is also asking that a trial not get started until August 3rd, 2020.
For now, we will have to wait and see what comes of ACE’s lawsuit targeting Omniverse.
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