A UK company is leading the way in getting pirated content taken down from the Internet. Cambridgeshire-based DiCopSys is ranked 22nd in Google’s global list of companies achieving take-down of digital pirated material, despite charging as little as £10 a month for its services.

The company uses its proprietary software to search out online copyright infringements and use US and European legislation to serve take-down notices on the offenders. The system then monitors the offending websites to ensure that the pirated material has been removed.

In addition to ensuring the illegal download files are blocked, DiCopSys also targets index pages from aggregator or feeder sites and de-listing from Google.

According to Ian Noble, Director of DiCopSys, unless there is a concerted effort to tackle online piracy, it will simply get worse. “We have cases where we find popular magazines available online before their publication date and films being watched before they even hit the cinemas. Yet research shows that if people are unsuccessful in obtaining pirated material after three attempts, they will buy the original so by dealing with this issue, the creative industries can improve sales,” he advised.

Categories: Articles, Content, Piracy, Policy, Regulation, Rights