• Bloomberg, Wednesday, September 29, 2010 12:56 PM

Online subscription service Ivi is being sued by the top networks for streaming their programs over the Web without authorization. The companies, including ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and the Public Broadcasting Service, accuse Ivi and its founder Todd Weaver of copyright infringement in a federal court complaint in New York, reports Bloomberg.

"Defendants have launched their infringing Internet TV service to coincide with the start of the new fall television season," the broadcasters said in the complaint. Based in Seattle, Ivi reportedly began streaming TV stations there and in New York 24 hours a day to Web subscribers worldwide earlier this month. For $4.99 a month after a 30-day free trial, subscribers could stream all the programming their wanted. On Sept. 20, Ivi and Weaver filed suit in federal court in Seattle seeking a ruling that Ivi isn't infringing copyrights. "Big media is choosing to fight Internet delivery the same way they fought against cable delivery and satellite delivery, when in reality it is legal to retransmit," Weaver tells Bloomberg in an e-mail.

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