Piracy and Social Media (2)
Social media offers privileged access to pirated content. These platforms therefore also work as a search engine and as a channel of mediation between the user and digital content, whether legal or illegal.
In an EUIPO report published in 2021 on the role of social media in intellectual property infringement, it was observed that, in terms of the volume of conversations related to digital piracy, Reddit was the most used network, followed by Twitter.
More specifically, most conversations about ebook piracy, sporting events and music were concentrated on Twitter, while Reddit generated the highest percentage of conversations in the video game, film and television categories.
AgencePDN gets this kind of content removed: see our Fraudulent ads service.
Source: EUIPO report
The case of the r/piracy subreddit
Of course, copyrighted material turns up on various subreddits, but the r/piracy forum is, by definition, intended for people who want to discuss tools, techniques and resources related to online piracy.
Created in 2008, the subreddit currently has more than 640,000 members. Its purpose? A community dedicated to discussion of digital piracy. Like many digital spaces linked to piracy, the subreddit engages in a delicate balancing act. While general conversations about piracy are accepted in the name of free speech, it is forbidden to ask other users for links or activation keys for specific content.
Reddit's position is relatively ambiguous – indeed, in 2019, a “cleanup” of the platform was carried out, and many threads such as r/NBAstreams were removed. All content prior to 2019 was also removed from r/piracy.
At first glance, the figures reflect this effort to monitor content.
- In 2018, Reddit carried out 26,234 content removals.
- In 2019, removals were five times higher – 124,257 removals.
- In 2020, they rose again by 2.5 times compared with the previous year and 375,774 pieces of content were removed.
However, it must be realized that despite the absence or decrease of visible links on the platform, piracy on Reddit has not necessarily decreased; it has simply changed form. Links and other specific information are now mostly exchanged by private message, but it is indeed on Reddit that users interested in piracy gather.
For its part, the microblogging network is not especially known as a pirate hunter – on many occasions users have posted films broken up into several clips in threads – but its teams nevertheless respond to takedown notices even if they do not actively seek to limit piracy. For a long time, accounts of now-closed sites such as Tirexo or Extreme down posted updates of their addresses on the platform with impunity.
The EUIPO report also mentions that it is on Twitter that conversations about music piracy are the most numerous.
Recently, Twitter was also the source of a scandal: a celebrity photo agency filed a lawsuit – seeking damages of $230 million – after thousands of photos ended up on the site.
The agency Backgrid claims that Twitter refused to respond adequately to takedown notices – and to take the necessary measures, removals and closure of accounts. The agency therefore brought legal action before a California court in December 2022, concerning more than 1,500 images used repeatedly by several accounts that are still active today.
Twitter's lack of response may indeed raise questions about its attitude toward respect for intellectual property, given that the platform's terms of use state that if multiple copyright complaints are received about an account, or if other evidence suggests a pattern of repeat infringement, Twitter may suspend that account. Twitter has not yet commented on the lawsuit brought by Backgrid, while the agency reportedly filed more than 6,700 DMCA notices with no reaction whatsoever from Twitter.
Join us in mid-March for our next article, an overview of the most effective anti-piracy methods in 2023. In the meantime, if you have content to protect – a film, a series, a music album or a sporting event – don't hesitate to contact one of our account managers, we will be happy to help, so that you can take back control of your revenue!
