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Combating online piracy with better and more convenient legitimate services

The motion picture industry has established a search site to help consumers find non-pirated movies and TV shows available on the Internet: WheretoWatch.com. A study by NetNames estimated that 23.8% of all the bandwidth consumed in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific in January 2013 was used to access pirated content. There are more than 100 legal online services offering movie and television content in the U.S., according to Chairman and CEO Senator Chris Dodd of the Motion Picture Association of America, and a study by KPMG found that 94% of the most popular and critically acclaimed films were legally available online in December 2013. Read More ›

Copyright Alert System successfully launches

Over 1.3 million notices of alleged copyright infringement were sent to users of peer-to-peer (P2P) networks suspected of illegally sharing copyrighted material over a ten month period beginning in late February 2013, according to the Center for Copyright Information (CCI).
The Copyright Alert System, a voluntary private sector initiative of the CCI that is “based on the premise that most consumers will take corrective action if alleged copyright infringement involving their Internet account is brought to their attention,” generated the notices.
P2P networks are monitored on behalf of recording artists and music producers, filmmakers, and creators and distributors of movies and television shows, and notices of alleged copyright infringement are generated through the use of publicly available IP address data. This information is shared with Internet Service Providers (ISPs), who then deliver up to six separate alerts (for repeat violations) to the corresponding account holders without sharing any personally-identifiable information about their customers.

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