by Jesse K. Martin, Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel, Content Protection and Legal Affairs (Intermediary Programs)
Today’s criminal websites are skilled at mimicking legitimate services down to the use of popular offerings from well-known online players.1 Indeed, piracy sites rely on intermediaries to utilize mainstream online services to generate traffic, earn revenue, and obtain necessary infrastructure to support their illicit business models.
While not a comprehensive list, intermediaries could be anything from domain name registrars to internet service providers to search engines. They could also take the form of payment processors, digital advertising networks, and social media networks.
Voluntary initiatives, including information sharing and best practices, have been recognized as effective means for rights holders and intermediaries to deter online theft.2 Key components of an impactful voluntary initiative, include:
First, identifying the various ways illegal services are using legal intermediaries as part of their illicit activity. As described above, the intermediary may be a payment provider enabling piracy sites to profit from the sale of pirated content, a search engine providing links to illegal websites, or a platform hosting infringing content.
Second, collaboration. Expect that legitimate services do not want to unknowingly enable piracy. The MPA’s objective is to dialogue with the relevant intermediary or intermediaries to identify where there are common/similar goals—such as preventing piracy services from leeching bandwidth, avoiding reputation damages to major brands due to proximity to illegal activity and harms like malware, and protecting consumers from bad actors.
Finally, through each instance of collaboration, we aim to develop a long-term, constructive partnership that effectively protects consumers, prevents criminal piracy operators from abusing major platform services and ultimately disrupt piracy services. We appreciate that each instance of piracy involving an intermediary will have its own unique set of facts. And, while it may be easier to look the other way, taking steps to react to instances of piracy abuses and brainstorm and establish proactive measures to prevent such abuse from proliferating will deliver benefits to both parties while simultaneously reducing infringement of copyrighted works.
In my new role as Senior Vice President & Associate General Counsel, I lead the MPA’s intermediary programs, working with a global team of data analysts, technical experts, investigators, attorneys, and policy specialists to help protect creative content through collaboration with intermediaries around the world. Our goal is to work closely with third party intermediaries of all types and in all regions to develop ways to make the internet a safer place for consumers and creators. As rights-holders and creators we will do our part. While we encourage and expect intermediaries to do theirs, we welcome the opportunity to collaborate with us so we can support you and build long-term, impactful partnerships.
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1 “Major brand advertising on piracy websites and apps is a $100 million problem.” See Breaking (B)ads: How Advertiser-supported Piracy Helps Fuel a Booming Multi-Billion Dollar Illegal Market, Aug. 2021 at pg. 12.
2 See Copyright Alliance Position Paper, Voluntary Initiatives, available at: Voluntary Initiatives & Fighting Infringement | Copyright Alliance.
