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The Demand-Letter Guide · Sports & PPV (draft) Independent — makes no money

You Got a Letter, or Got Sued, Over a Game or Fight You Showed. Start Here.

A letter, email, or court papers from Joe Hand Promotions, G&G Closed Circuit Events, J&J Sports Productions, Innovative Sports Management, or Lonstein Law is a real claim by the authorized distributor of a sports or PPV broadcast, not a scam. Federal law lets a distributor recover damages when a commercial establishment shows a broadcast it did not license, under 47 U.S.C. §605 for a satellite feed or 47 U.S.C. §553 for a cable feed. The $110,000 figure that anchors most of these letters is a ceiling, not a bill. What matters first is not how much they are asking, but which document you are actually holding, because only one kind starts a court clock.

What You Need to Know

Which Document Do You Have? Start Here

The single most useful thing you can do first is identify what is in your hand, because the document decides whether a deadline is running and where to go next. Find the one that matches.

A demand letter, email, or phone call (no court papers). This is a pre-suit settlement demand: the distributor's agent says you showed an event without a commercial license and asks you to pay to resolve it. There is no court case yet and no court deadline, which means you have time to verify the claim and respond correctly rather than react. Read how to respond to a demand letter, and to understand the claim itself, the law they are citing.

A summons and complaint (you have been "served"). This is a filed federal lawsuit. It has a court name at the top, a case number, the distributor as plaintiff, and a stated deadline to respond. A federal answer is due on a fixed clock, typically 21 days from the date you were served under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12, and missing it can lead to a default judgment. This is the point to stop self-diagnosing and go to served with a federal lawsuit, then retain a lawyer who handles these cases. If your business is an LLC or corporation, this is not optional: an entity cannot represent itself in federal court through its owner and must appear through a lawyer.

A "notice of a lawsuit and request to waive service." This means a lawsuit has been filed and the plaintiff is asking you to accept service by mail instead of by a process server. Waiving usually gives you more time to answer, not less, but ignoring the request does not make the suit go away and can cost you that extra time. Treat it as a filed case: served with a federal lawsuit and counsel.

Default papers (a clerk's entry of default or a motion for default judgment). This means a deadline has already passed without a response on file. It is the most time-sensitive situation on this page. Do not wait: go to served with a federal lawsuit and get a lawyer today, because there are narrow, time-limited steps that a court may still allow.

Papers that name the wrong business or person. The notice names a former owner, a business you sold or bought, a dissolved LLC, or an address that has changed hands. A naming error is worth raising, but it does not stop a clock by itself, and assuming "this isn't mine" is a common way people miss a real deadline. Confirm who and what is actually named, and handle it by document type above; if it is a filed suit, that still needs prompt attention from the right party.

No contact yet, but you are worried. You showed a game on a residential account and want to know your exposure before anything arrives. Start with the law they are citing and did they even have a case, which walks through whether the statute even reached how your feed was delivered.

If you are not the owner and this reached you first, as a bartender, manager, bookkeeper, spouse, or registered agent, get the complete document, including the envelope, to the owner today. A court deadline does not care who opened the mail, and papers that sit on a desk are how a defensible case becomes a default.

You can confirm that a lawsuit is real, independently of any phone number or link in the message, by looking up the court and case number in the federal court records system (CourtListener or PACER). A genuine case will appear there; that check also tells a real filing apart from an impersonator.

Is This Real, or a Scam?

In almost all cases it is real. The companies that send these letters, most often Joe Hand Promotions, G&G Closed Circuit Events, J&J Sports Productions, Innovative Sports Management, or the law firm Lonstein Law, are the authorized agents of the companies that hold commercial-distribution rights to boxing and UFC pay-per-views, big fights, and league broadcasts. They hold real rights, and the demand class is lawful collection, not fraud.

A genuine demand names a real distributor or its counsel, refers to a specific event and date, and describes the showing at your establishment. What "real" does not mean is that the dollar figure is right or that you owe what the letter says. A lawful claim and an inflated opening number often arrive in the same envelope. So the useful response is not to dismiss the letter as a scam, but to verify it (confirm the sender and, for a lawsuit, the case number in the court records) and then answer it on the facts.

Is the $110,000 Real?

It is a real number in the statute, but it is a ceiling, not a forecast of your bill. Under §605, a court may award base statutory damages of $1,000 to $10,000 per violation, and it "may increase the award of damages ... by an amount of not more than $100,000 for each violation" when the violation was willful and for commercial advantage. Add the top of each and you get the $110,000 that letters tend to feature. That is the most the statute allows in damages for a single willful violation, not the amount courts usually award, and a court can also reduce an award to as little as $250 where it finds the violation was innocent.

Two honest caveats keep this from cutting the wrong way. The $110,000 is a ceiling on the statutory-damages figure, not on your total exposure: under §605 a court must also order a losing defendant to pay the other side's "full costs, including ... reasonable attorneys' fees," which is a real cost that rides on top of any award and a real reason not to let a case run to judgment. And the figure is per violation, so it is not automatically a single event's ceiling either. What establishments actually pay, on the real record of settlements and default judgments, is far lower than the headline number, and is covered with the receipts on how they detect, demand, sue, and what venues pay. For the decision in front of you, the point is that the frightening number on the page is the top of a statutory range, not a verdict, and it is a reason neither to panic nor to ignore.

The Law, in One Breath

Two federal statutes cover signal piracy, and which one applies turns on how the feed reached your screens, not on the event or the dollar amount. A satellite feed falls under §605; a cable feed falls under §553. The two are built differently, and the difference changes the exposure, which is why the law they are citing walks through it in full.

Two more points belong here in one line each. First, a separate copyright claim under Title 17 can ride alongside the signal-piracy claim, because the league or promoter owns the broadcast as a copyrighted work; §605 itself says it does not affect rights "under title 17." Second, paying your DIRECTV, cable, or streaming bill at home does not license a commercial showing, because residential accounts are sold for personal, non-commercial use. Whether the statute even reached your specific setup, satellite, cable, or an internet app, is the diagnosis on did they even have a case.

What Not to Do Tonight

A few first moves make a manageable situation worse:

None of this is about evading a valid claim or hiding how the feed was shown. It is about not converting a licensing dispute into a larger legal problem before you understand what you are holding.

A Bar Showing an NFL Game Can Get Two Different Letters

Signal piracy is not the only letter a venue can receive over the same night. If you showed a game with the sound on, you can also get a music-licensing letter from a performing rights organization such as ASCAP or BMI, which is a different counterparty enforcing a different right (the music in the broadcast, not the feed itself). That question runs on its own statute and is answered on the venues resource covering the §110(5)(B) TV-audio exemption. The two claims do not merge, and an answer to one is not an answer to the other; if you received both, handle each on its own track.

Where to Go Next

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a Joe Hand or G&G Letter a Scam?

Generally no. Joe Hand Promotions, G&G Closed Circuit Events, J&J Sports Productions, Innovative Sports Management, and Lonstein Law are authorized to enforce real commercial-distribution rights in sports and PPV broadcasts, and a genuine letter is lawful collection, not fraud. That does not mean the amount demanded is accurate, so the first step is to confirm the sender is who it claims to be, and for a lawsuit, to confirm the case in the court records, before you pay anything.

What Happens If I Ignore It?

For a demand letter, ignoring it typically means the matter escalates toward a filed lawsuit rather than going away. For a summons and complaint that has been served, ignoring it is how a default judgment is entered against you, because a federal answer is due on a fixed clock. Responding does not mean paying immediately; it means classifying the document and answering it correctly, which for a served suit means getting a lawyer promptly.

I Paid My DIRECTV or YouTube TV Bill. Am I Covered?

No. A residential account is sold for personal, non-commercial use, and paying that bill does not license showing the feed in a bar, restaurant, or other commercial establishment. Commercial exhibition is a separate right the distributor sells separately, which is the reason these claims exist even when your home account is fully paid up.

The Letter Names My Old LLC or a Business I Sold. Can I Ignore It?

No. A naming or ownership error is worth raising, in writing and with documentation, but it does not stop a court deadline on its own, and treating "this isn't mine" as a conclusion is a common way to miss a real one. Confirm exactly who and what is named, and if it is a filed suit, make sure the correct party addresses it promptly rather than assuming the error resolves it.

How Long Do I Have to Respond?

A demand letter usually carries no court deadline, so there is time to verify and respond deliberately. A served summons and complaint is different: a federal answer is generally due within 21 days of service under Rule 12, and default papers mean a deadline has already passed. Treat any filed lawsuit as time-sensitive and consult counsel right away.

Do I Need a Lawyer?

For a pre-suit demand letter, often not, at least to understand and respond to it. Once a lawsuit has been filed and served, yes: the deadlines are real, defending a filed case is not something to attempt alone, and if your business is an LLC or corporation it cannot even appear in federal court without a lawyer (an entity cannot represent itself through its owner). When you reach that point, retaining an attorney who handles signal-piracy defense is the right move, and choosing one is worth doing carefully rather than under pressure.