Actual Case Studies

Protecting your Intellectual Property : Copyright theft and piracy

[]In association with the Intellectual Property lawyers Ludlams we can offer technical and commercial advice, as well as engaging in further legal actions, jurisdiction permitting.

We can analyse the origins of fake web sites, pirated files and domains, and assess the likelihood of successfully disabling them.

This initial work will outline some options available and their likely success rate. You may handle the followup work yourself, or ask for further assistance, including the preparation of Abuse reports to the relevant hosts etc., or consider direct legal action where feasible.

This service has been beneficial and reassuring to affected business owners who may not have relevant experience of handling domain names, Internet Service Providers, hosting, networking etc. and may not know where to start.

A number of actual cases are outlined below.

Case Study: EPE Magazine - copyright infringement of IP and piracy.

EPE MagazineThis technology magazine sells traditional paper copies plus a downloadable PDF version. A forum web site operated by a pirate promoted the exchange of links pointing to illegally-uploaded copies of the journal. This encouraged copyright theft and undermined subscription sales.

Web site investigations led to Eastern Europe but abuse complaints were ignored and the domain name details were also falsified.

Overseas IP lawyers were engaged which required a notarised General Power of Attorney to be drafted, and apostilled by the UK Foreign Office, which we duly arranged.

After legal documents were couriered to Eastern Europe and served on the offending ISP, the forum was shut within the hour. Further input from foreign Police agencies, the ISP and telephone companies (tracing the uploading of illegal files to the server) identified the criminal and legal documents were served. Also:

  • A web server at a South Korean University was hosting copyrighted files illegally. We researched the location and hosting details, and forced the files to be removed.
  • Files were traced to the web server of a medical practice in India. As they did not respond an Abuse report was submitted to domain registrars in the USA. The web site was immediately disabled.
  • In some cases, action under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was undertaken, forcing the removal of copyrighted material.
  • Rapid tracing and reporting of infringements to various file-sharing sites enables copies to be deleted quickly, disrupting the circulation of files.
  • Large dummy corrupted files were also uploaded to strategic locations, frustrating the file-sharers even more.

Case Study: Green Tree (Warehousing) Ltd.

In 2008 this business was stricken by piracy of their entire web site, copies of which were fraudulently re-hosted under hundred of domains. A falsified Job Vacancy for a "Financial Controller" lured job seekers into a money-laundering scam. This was spammed worldwide by highly skilled Internet villains, under the guise of a popular recruitment web site.

As a result the client's search engine campaign was derailed due to the huge influx of pirated web sites. It also disrupted the daily running of the business.

We were asked to urgently analyse the scale of the problem and evaluate any responses. We re-assured the client and advised on the practicality and likelihood of success of shutting down hundreds of fraudulent domains, putting the problem into perspective and allowing the client to regain control.

With our help the company regained the initiative and was able to resume normal business after weathering the storm.

Case Study: Registered Charity

A British registered charity was affected by the passing off of similar domain names to intercept certain search engine traffic.

We were asked to analyse the piracy of sound-alike domain names and were able to indicate actions available to have offending "typosquatted" domains disabled. Our initial "look see" report explained how the culprits made money from the search engine traffic, also investigating domains and the marketers engaged in hosting them.

This enabled the charity to weigh up some options that they could follow through for themselves knowing their likelihood of success.

Contact Us for Help

If your Internet presence or copyrighted material is the subject of infringement, domain name piracy, passing off, IP infringement or similar activity, please contact us for initial advice or to request an evaluation report.

We will discuss typical costs before making an initial investigation that will suggest practical and other routes that may be open to you.

When considering legal action you must seek specific legal advice as appropriate from an intellectual property specialist such as Ludlams.

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