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Todd Scott: NBR owner on the company's recent legal victory · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks Be follow
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  Speaker 2: Now. The NBR is celebrating a big win in a
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  Speaker 2: major copyright lawsuit. They took legal action against companies that
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  Speaker 2: were sharing passwords for payward subscriptions, arguing that doing so
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  Speaker 2: is essentially stealing content. The companies have now settled with
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  Speaker 2: the NBA cover the legal costs, agreed to buy the
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  Speaker 2: proper number of subscriptions. Todd Scott is a businessman and
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  Speaker 2: who's the owner of the NBA here and he's with us.
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  Speaker 3: High Todd, good greetings, how are you?
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  Speaker 2: And very well? Thank you. How many subscriptions were they
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  Speaker 2: sharing amongst themselves?
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  Speaker 3: It was it was a case of just buying a
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  Speaker 3: few subscriptions and overusing those subscriptions. I don't really want
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  Speaker 3: to go into details. And I got to say, there,
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  Speaker 3: but for the grace go there, for the grace of God,
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  Speaker 3: go I. There'd be plenty of CEOs who weren't aware,
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  Speaker 3: aren't aware of what's going on in their organizations, but
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  Speaker 3: it's quite well spread. And really what this is is
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  Speaker 3: just a friendly warning shot. It's like, you know, if
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  Speaker 3: we were playing a sport to'd be the referee getting
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  Speaker 3: the two captains together, saying, hey, listen, if you guys
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  Speaker 3: don't sort out your teams, there's going to be some
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  Speaker 3: serious consequences. You know, go on, talk to your teams.
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  Speaker 3: And that's really what I'm doing. I'm talking to CEO saying,
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  Speaker 3: I know you don't know what's going on, but it
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  Speaker 3: is actually your job to know you are accountable. You
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  Speaker 3: are responsible, and it's just straight out theft. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: we introduced the payball back in July two thousand and nine,
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  Speaker 3: so we actually started off with an IP subscription model,
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  Speaker 3: which isn't all you can eat. Companies paid for it.
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  Speaker 3: But in twenty twenty, due to COVID and people working
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  Speaker 3: from home, that didn't work anymore because the IT managers
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  Speaker 3: didn't want people accessing VPN from home. So my wife,
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  Speaker 3: who's really the brains of the business, Jackie, she actually
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  Speaker 3: had been working on another project where we actually introduced
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  Speaker 3: group premium subscriptions. So we're not changing anything. These corporates
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  Speaker 3: are buying groups. They assigned the subscriptions to people in
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  Speaker 3: their employment and they should be using those for themselves,
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  Speaker 3: not letting other people share their password. But it goes on,
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  Speaker 3: but it can't go on anymore for us because MBR
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  Speaker 3: doesn't take government funding. We don't take advertising. We're one
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  Speaker 3: hundred percent funded by a member subscribers. We've got fifteen seniors,
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  Speaker 3: one intermediate. Our biggest group subscriber is three hundred. That
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  Speaker 3: generates fifty four thousand dollars a year plus GST. That's
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  Speaker 3: not even enough for a junior.
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  Speaker 2: Now, did you take action because they had bord a
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  Speaker 2: subscription and they were sharing it amongst themselves as staff,
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  Speaker 2: or they were sharing it outside of the organization.
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  Speaker 3: They were sharing it with staff and outside the organization,
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  Speaker 3: but just the fact that they were sharing it. You know,
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  Speaker 3: we have a scaling model. We are very attractive scaling models.
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  Speaker 3: And it's just a case of people understanding when you
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  Speaker 3: do that, you are literally stealing. There is no other
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  Speaker 3: way that NBA can generate money. So when you rob
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  Speaker 3: us of that opportunity, it is stealing. And what happens
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  Speaker 3: say that you know this the supermarkets, the theft, you know,
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  Speaker 3: all the shoplifting, there's a name for it, they call
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  Speaker 3: it shrinkage. And ultimately what ends up happening is the
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  Speaker 3: customer actually has to pay for it, so when you
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  Speaker 3: go to the supermarket, they've built in the fact somebody
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  Speaker 3: is going to Nike this, so heither you have to
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  Speaker 3: pay more for it. And I don't want our loyal
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  Speaker 3: member subscribers to have to incur another price increase because
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  Speaker 3: our content and our platform has been ripped off.
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  Speaker 2: Have organizations other than the ones that you have settled
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  Speaker 2: with got the message and started buying subs?
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  Speaker 3: I hope. So because I've got it, we've actually come
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  Speaker 3: up with a sophisticated system and method. You can go, Yes,
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  Speaker 3: we can, and what are you saying that it's not pretty?
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  Speaker 3: And we have a short list and we're going after
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  Speaker 3: that now.
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  Speaker 2: So this is not the end of it. You're coming
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  Speaker 2: after the other people doing the same thing.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely, And I've been I've been quite I've been quite
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  Speaker 3: honest and quite open and I think generous. You know,
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  Speaker 3: there's an amnesty until the end of novemb tidy up house. Otherwise,
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  Speaker 3: I'm not going to let you get away with a settlement.
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to take it all the way through the courts.
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  Speaker 3: It's a serious thing.
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  Speaker 2: How can you tell if someone is sharing a password
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  Speaker 2: with too many people.
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  Speaker 3: When you're looking at the data and the analytics that
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  Speaker 3: I get to look at with my team. It's that
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  Speaker 3: there's alarm bells that go off pretty quickly.
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  Speaker 2: Like you will see the same password and user name
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  Speaker 2: and password combo logging on across all kinds of different devices.
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  Speaker 3: And there's there's different IP addresses, so you know, so
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  Speaker 3: a really obvious one that we found with one of
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  Speaker 3: these particular companies, it was an IP address from a
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  Speaker 3: person in Australia that was also logging on in New Zealand.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Now, how many subs did these ones that you
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  Speaker 2: settled with take on after you settled with them?
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  Speaker 3: A great number more than they had. Give me a number,
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  Speaker 3: although I have to say I think my lawyer did
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  Speaker 3: slightly better out of this arrangement than I did.
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  Speaker 2: Say, is it actually worth it? I mean for the
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  Speaker 2: cost of legal action.
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  Speaker 3: For what it cost me nothing they paid for it,
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  Speaker 3: which was kind.
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  Speaker 2: Of That doesn't mean you're going to be successful, right,
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  Speaker 2: So is it worth it?
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  Speaker 3: Well? I am so far you Okay to thank you.
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  Speaker 3: I wouldn't have gone after them if I didn't know
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  Speaker 3: that they were sitting ducks.
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  Speaker 2: Lord Todd, thank you very much. Todd Scott businessman and
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  Speaker 2: the NBR owned.
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