Media companies are becoming more aggressive at pursing file sharers and downloaders on the internet. Companies and organisations are under particular threat as they are seen as being more likely to be able to pay substantial damages. This makes them an attractive target for “pirate hunters”
The problem
One of our public sector clients received a complaint from the Motion Picture Industry Association of America (MPIAA). MPIAA claimed that their own forensic experts had found that our clients systems were being used to distribute illegal pre-release copies of an upcoming “summer blockbuster” movie. MPIAA’s letter made it very clear that legal action would follow if our client did not remove the material.
We were asked by the client to find the illegal material and remove it (a relatively straightforward task). We were also asked to find out who was responsible for putting it on their systems in the first place.
The solution
We quickly found the server on which the data was stored. Analysis of the server allowed us to identify three people, all of whom had access to the server and any of whom could have placed the data.
We obtained permission to discreetly take forensic copies of each of these individual’s computers. We quickly identified the guilty party. Not only had this person copies of the movie MPIAA had complained about, he also had over 500 gigabytes of other materials stored on his computer and a number of external hard drives. It appeared that the individual was running an intellectual property theft “factory” – making use of our client’s high-bandwidth internet connection to download copies of movies and TV series, and converting them to less data-intensive and more computer friendly formats. He then placed them on our client’s servers for other to share. In parallel, the suspect was also obtaining illegal copies of games software and using specialised editing tools to remove their security protections so they could be used generally.
Very little evidence was found that the individual in question was doing the job they were actually paid by our client to do.
We supported our client through the lengthy dismissal process. The individual in question was eventually forced to resign without compensation and with no other industrial relations consequences for our client. Our client received no further complaints from MIPAA.