The ongoing fight against digital piracy

In February 2017, two of the largest global search engines, Google and Bing, pledged to implement a programme to 'demote' sites offering pirated content, within the results of searches carried out by UK users^[1]. The initiative is intended to make it more difficult for users to find and access illegal content such as pirated films, music and streamed video content. To this end, it augments existing measures such as the blocking of sites which have been determined to be offering infringing material, and the reduction of in the number of advertisements served on such sites. These strategies are all intended to encourage users to access digital content via legitimate sources, which not only protects the revenues of content producers, but also protects Internet users from the malicious content which may exist on non-legitimate provider websites.

Digital piracy (i.e. the unauthorised use, distribution or reproduction of electronic content which is protected by copyright) is an enormous (and growing) issue and affects content providers in a range of industries, including music, movies, TV, software, and publishing. A 2011 study found that the cost to the global economy resulting from digital piracy was up to $75 billion, a figure which was predicted to increase to up to $240 billion by 2015^[2]. In an updated study published this year, the global value of digital piracy in 2015 was estimated as having been $213 billion ($160bn in film, $29bn in music and $24bn in software), projected to rise to between $384 billion and $856 billion by 2022, with the number of job losses associated with the combined economic effects of piracy and counterfeiting together set to approach 5 million^[3]. In total, almost a quarter (approximately 23.8%) of all Internet traffic globally has been estimated (as of 2011) to pertain to the unauthorised sharing of copyrighted content^[4], with a 2013 study finding that 432 million unique Internet users had explicitly sought infringing content during the month of January of that year, associated with 13.9 billion recorded page views on piracy-focused websites^[5].

There are two distinct classes of Internet technologies which are primarily used to facilitate the sharing of pirated content online: 'cyberlockers' (or 'one-click download' sites) allow the uploading of digital files which can subsequently be downloaded (or streamed directly) by other users, whilst 'peer-to-peer' (P2P) technologies allow the sharing of digital files between users connected to some sort of specialised network.

Cyberlockers are a type of 'cloud' storage service, a category of service which also includes legitimate file-sharing applications. However, those cyberlockers which are specifically intended to facilitate the sharing of copyright-protected content typically feature a number of factors which distinguish them from legitimate service providers. The characteristics of these cyberlocker sites may include: offers of reward schemes to users uploading popular content; extensive use of advertising which may be malicious or deliberately misleading; and a lack of limits on file-storage space and access rights to files. A 2014 study looking at thirty of the most popular cyberlocker sites suggested that at least 79% of files on direct-download cyberlockers, and at least 84% of files on streaming cyberlockers, were infringing^[6]. Content on cyberlockers is most frequently found by Internet users either through the use of dedicated 'cyberlocker link' sites, or via direct search-engine queries.

P2P file-sharing networks come in a variety of types, though one of the most common protocols for P2P file-sharing currently is BitTorrent, accounting for more than half of the total proportion of Internet traffic which is dedicated to file-sharing, as of 2013^[7]. As with other technologies which can be used for sharing pirated material, users are able to identify content of interest on BitTorrent networks via the use of indexing sites.

Ironically, the very measures which are being taken by search engines, in order to make it more difficult for general Internet users to access infringing material, can similarly make it less straightforward for content providers to locate unauthorised sources of their copyrighted material, and to determine the scale of the piracy issues they may be experiencing. Consequently, it can be incredibly beneficial for any brand owners involved in the production or distribution of digital content to implement a dedicated piracy-protection programme, as part of a brand-protection strategy. Such programmes, which can be carried out by the content providers themselves, or in partnership with a specialised brand-protection service provider, can assist with the identification of sources of infringing content (particularly in cases where they may not easily be identifiable via the use of search engines), and with subsequent enforcement action, to have these illegal sources deactivated.

References

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39023950 

[2] http://www.iccwbo.org/Advocacy-Codes-and-Rules/BASCAP/BASCAP-Research/Economic-impact/Global-Impacts-Study/ 

[3] http://www.worldtrademarkreview.com/blog/Detail.aspx?g=465292fc-fddf-4c92-9273-fe4b5f9b6fbb 

[4] http://documents.envisional.com/docs/Envisional-Internet_Usage-Jan2011.pdf 

[5] https://copyrightalliance.org/sites/default/files/2013-netnames-piracy.pdf 

[6] http://www2.itif.org/2014-netnames-profitability.pdf 

[7] http://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/app-usage-risk-report-visualization/

This article was first published on 27 February 2017 at:

https://www.koganpage.com/article/the-ongoing-fight-against-digital-piracy