Creating A Global Internet

Anti-Piracy Strategy

Gareth Young – Senior Internet Investigator

Covington & Burling LLP

Know Your Issue(s)

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Goals – The obvious and the not so obvious

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• Reduce piracy

• Increase your profitability

• Decrease their profitability

• Educate customers

• Improve client relationships

• Protect distributors

• Enhance negotiating position

Anti-Piracy:

One Size Doesn't Fit All

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• Core – Choose what matters most

• Focus – A few concerted actions have more effect

• Dynamic – Strategy needs to evolve with the threat

• Burst – Planned expansions to the core program

• Experiment – Don’t be afraid to be creative

• Understand – Why are the players playing

• Legal – Escalated actions

The Players

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• Often more parties than you would think:

o Seller

o Poster

o Distributor

o Site Administrator

o Advertising Networks – often multiple

o Domain Name Registrar

o ISP

o Link Monetisation Sites

o Payment Processors

o Cyberlocker / One Click Host

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Over 2000

One Click Host /

Monetisation domains

and growing

How To Review your Issue:

Link Sites (…as an example…)

What? Why? How? Issues? Options?

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Content

Forum /

Blog

Catalogue /

IndexLink Site

Process

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What Are Link Sites?

• Connect the audience to

content hosted elsewhere

– they do not host the files

themselves

• Diverse range of site layouts

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Why Do Link Sites Exist?

• Rapid collation and distribution of download links

• Safe downloading – Difficult to monitor downloaders activities

• Easy to administer / Easy to download

• Cheap to run

• Popular! Creatures of habit, returning time and again

• Perceived low risk of enforcement

• High click-through & advertising imprints

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How Do Link Sites Make Money?

• Pop-ups / Pop-unders

• Banner ads

• Click-throughs

• Donations

• Popularity / visibility / search

ranking

• Affiliate schemes

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Possible Issues

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Monitoring Action Enforcement

Hidden / Obscured

content sources.

I.P. address blocking Region Specific Laws

Use of folders and

CAPTCHA

Non compliant choke

points

Resources – legal and

technical

Use of throw-away

blogs and domains

Slow response to

notices – Court orders

possibly required

Law enforcement buy-

in

Security issues, viruses Underlying

infringement removed

before ISP action

Volume of infringing

content

Search engine hacks

What Are Your Options?

• Near instant removals (Search engines, RSS,

Crawlers, Catalogues)

• Search engine de-listing

• Apply pressure to one click hosts

• Disrupt the money

• Make it less fun to run and more like hard work

• Law Enforcement – I.C.E. Referrals

• Work with other content owners

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Covington & Burling LLP

Gareth Young

Senior Internet Investigator

GYoung@cov.com

+44 (0) 207 067 2102