MediaDefender: Difference between revisions

MediaDefender is a company which offers services designed to prevent and stop people who engage in peer-to-peer copyright infringement, using tactics such as flooding peer-to-peer networks with decoy files that tie up a user's computer. MediaDefender is based in Los Angeles California in the United States, and its president is Randy Saaf. MediaDefender has approximately 60 employees.

Increasingly these type of organizations are being hired to stymie P2P traders through a variety of methods including: posting fake files online, recording individuals who contribute copyrighted material, etc. Key clients include Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Virgin Records, HBO, Paramount Pictures, and BMG .

On August 1, 2005, ARTISTdirect announced that it had acquired MediaDefender for $42.5 million in cash. MediaDefender is estimated to have between 2,000 and 6,000 servers using 9 GB/s of bandwidth and hosted in California.

Miivi.com

In February 2007, MediaDefender launched a video sharing site called Miivi.com. On July 4, 2007, file-sharing news site p2pnet alleged that Miivi.com was created to trap uploaders of copyrighted content. The site's origins were discovered by a blogger who looked up Miivi.com domain registration information. After the allegation was re-posted throughout the blogosphere, Miivi.com was shut down on July 4, 2007. MediaDefender denied further allegations that it was trying to convict anyone. In an interview with Ars Technica, a MediaDefender employee claimed that "MediaDefender was working on an internal project that involved video and didn't realize that people would be trying to go to it and so we didn't password-protect the site." MediaDefender blamed file-sharing groups such as The Pirate Bay for starting the story. When questioned, the MPAA denied any involvement with MediaDefender. On September 14, 2007, internal emails from MediaDefender were leaked to The Pirate Bay, appearing to indicate that Miivi.com was created to catch potential copyright violators, was closed when this fact became public knowledge, and was scheduled to be re-launched as www.viide.com (as of September 15, 2007, viide.com has not been opened up to the public).

Email leak

On September 14, 2007, thousands of the company's internal emails were leaked, containing information contradicting previous statements and details of strategies intended to deceive pirates. The emails link MediaDefender to projects that management previously denied involvement in, confirm speculation that MiiVi.com was an anti-piracy honeypot site, discuss responses to unexpected and negative press, and expose upcoming projects, problems in and around the office, and personal information about employees. Beyond strategic information, the leak also exposed login information for FTP servers, making available a large library of MP3 files likely including artists represented by MediaDefender's clients. As of September 15, 2007 there has been no official response from the company.

Fact sheet

• Website: MediaDefender Website
• IP Slots: 38.117.6.0/23, 38.102.233.185/204/70

See also

• Copyright social conflict

External links

• MediaDefender's Official Website
• LA Times article about Piracy, with a quote from Randy Saaf.
• "MPAA Caught Uploading Fake Torrents" — TorrentFreak (IP addresses of fake torrents traced back to MediaDefender)
• "Anti-Piracy Gang Launches their own Video Download Site to Trap People" — TorrentFreak (The domain registration of a fake video upload / download service called miivi has been traced to MediaDefender).
• Article about email leak at TorrentFreak