Internet Piracy Overview
Copyright violations on the internet are almost as old as the internet itself. When large scale piracy started most files were shared using P2P technology, that is from one user directly to another. This form of piracy was perpetrated mostly without any commercial interests. Nowadays the scene has professionalized and P2P downloads have been largely replaced by direct downloads and streams from file hosting providers. Such services can’t be operated with spare bandwidth of private internet connections, they require large server farms to hold all the Petabyte of data and serve them fast to the users.
DMCA
International treaties for the operation of online services ensure the Server operators can’t be held accountable for content uploaded by users of their services, as long as they swiftly remove the infringing offerings after being notified of their existence. This originates from the USA and is a part of the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act“.
The hosting providers exploit DMCA by incenting third parties to upload content and make it available to the public, often without the rights holder’s permission. Usually the uploaders will get large commissions for every new registered paying downloader, or bonuses for uploading especially popular content. To ensure the hosting providers will be notified about the infringing material as late as possible, the files are usually given random names and are often encrypted.
To counter the flood of illegally offered downloads it is necessary to find and take them down automatically. The Shoot-Down.com service searches the internet for copyright violations and issues takedown notices. Our search-bots examine the entries to identify protected works which belong to our customers. The collected lists of illegal offerings can then be automatically submitted to the hosting services for deletion using our Shoot-Down-Bots to inform of DMCA Notices or similar.
With continuous monitoring of new offerings we ensure that newly uploaded files are taken offline quickly. This way we can greatly suppress the availability of unlicensed offerings and greatly reduce the chance of finding working downloads and/or streams.