U.S. Anti-Piracy Police Kept Secret From The Public
• Ernesto
• August 11, 2011
http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-anti-piracy-police-kept-secret-from-the-public-110811/
Last month the MPAA and RIAA made a deal with all the major Internet providers
in the United States to systematically hunt down file-sharers. The new
“Copyright Alerts” system will directly affect millions of Internet users, but
thus far the participating parties have refused to disclose which monitoring
company will act as anti-piracy detectives. It’s time for the big reveal.
Starting in a few months, the copyright police will start to track down
‘pirates’ as part of an agreement with all major U.S. Internet providers.
All parties agreed to warn copyright infringers that their behavior is
unacceptable. After six warnings the ISP may then take a variety of repressive
measures, which include slowing down the offender’s connection.
The new system is a formalized version of the existing takedown system already
operated by copyright holders, and was announced under the name ‘Copyright
Alerts‘.
When the agreement was made public in July, two questions immediately came to
mind. The first one concerns where data on alleged infringers will be
collected, by whom and how long it will be stored. Secondly, which company will
be tasked with ‘spying’ on millions of BitTorrent users.
During the last month TorrentFreak tried to get answers on these vital
questions, but to our surprise it was impossible to get a response through the
official channels. On multiple occasions we contacted the RIAA, A2IM, the
Center for Copyright Information, the PR firm of Center for Copyright
Information and participating ISPs, but none of these entities were willing to
provide more information on the record.
Only when we contacted people off the record we were able to find out more.
Independently of each other, two sources involved in copyright enforcement
informed us that DtecNet is the company that will be tracking unauthorized
file-sharing under the new copyright alert system.
So who are DtectNet and why is their alleged appointment being kept from the
public?
Looking at the history of DtecNet we find that the company originally stems
from the anti-piracy lobby group Antipiratgruppen, which represents the music
and movie industry in Denmark. And there are more direct ties to the
entertainment industry. Kristian Lakkegaard, one of DtecNet’s employees, used
to work for the RIAA’s global partner IFPI.
Last year the Danish company was acquired by the US brand protection firm
MarkMonitor, but continues to operate under its own name. As an established
anti-piracy company, DtecNet already works closely with the RIAA and MPAA. In
addition, they are responsible for collecting data on copyright infringers as
part of the Irish three-strikes program.
Although little is known about the accuracy of DtecNet’s tracking software,
TorrentFreak has previously pointed out that the company knows very little
about how BitTorrent works. A whitepaper published by DtecNet claimed that
BitTorrent traffic had plummeted and was littered with painful errors and false
assumptions. The report in question has since been retracted (copy here),
indicating that in hindsight DtecNet wasn’t very happy with it either.
DtecNet’s parent company MarkMonitor also made the headlines with a report that
branded the file-hosting site RapidShare as the leading digital piracy site.
RapidShare, a company that has gone to extreme lengths both in and outside of
court to emphasize its legitimacy, was outraged and threatened to sue
MarkMonitor for defamation. MarkMonitor at the time told TorrentFreak that
their research was completely independent, but with revenues coming from both
the RIAA and MPAA their objectivity has to be in doubt.
So now we know that DtecNet will likely be the monitoring company used for the
copyright alerts program, one of our questions has been answered. However, we
still don’t know what will happen to the information DtecNet collects and where
this will be stored. For the sake of transparency, we hope that the Center for
Copyright Information will be more open about this in the future.
In a final attempt to get DtecNet’s appointment officially confirmed
TorrentFreak contacted Te Smith, Vice President of Communications at
MarkMonitor, who would not confirm or deny our findings.
“As a company, our policy is never to comment on whether someone (or some
company, organization or group) is or isn’t a client,” Te informed us.
But with two sources pointing at DtecNet we are confident that they will be
tracking U.S. file-sharers under the copyright alert program. Nevertheless,
this secrecy does raise new questions that are perhaps just as interesting as
the others we’ve asked previously.
Why would DtecNet’s involvement be kept a secret from the public? Why isn’t
there more openness about how the personal information of millions of alleged
file-sharers is to be handled? What do the groups behind these copyright alerts
have to hide?
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