Google, Visa, MasterCard and more are still cogs in piracy’s money machine

Google, Visa, MasterCard and more are still cogs in piracy’s money machine

by | Ad Sponsored Piracy, Copyright, Film, Piracy

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Many American companies still have their fingers in the Piracy Profit Pie

While Bitcoin, the shady crypto-currency,  may be emerging as a potential new not-so-legal tender in the black market of online piracy,  the fact remains that mainstream companies like Google, Visa and Mastercard still play a major role in facilitating the flow of money that’s exchanged (and earned) in this illicit underground economy.

There’s no question that cloud-based pirate cyberlocker havens took a hit after the demise of big daddy Megaupload with many of the biggest once scattering like cock roaches when the feds took action.  Despite that much-needed house-cleaning, offshore cyberlockers continue to be a major source of pirated content thanks to the profits they generate with little risk and much reward.  Unfortunately, despite lip-service to the contrary, ad networks like Google’s AdSense and payment processors like Visa and MasterCard remain an integral part of the system, acting as unseemly middlemen–earning income for themselves and the content thieves. Here’s how it works.

  • Pirate uploads stolen content (movies, music, books, etc) to cyberlocker (usually to multiple sites)
  • Pirate advertises the file’s download links on forums far and wide to attract “customers” to earn cash incentives from cyberlocker
  • Cyberlocker offer incentives to pirates to upload and “share” popular (pirated) content to attract traffic
  • More traffic means more income for Cyberlocker  via advertising (from services like Google AdSense) and premium subscriptions (paid for with Visa, MasterCard, etc)
  • Cyberlocker pays cash rewards to pirate uploader based downloads, referrals, and premium subscription sales
  • Everyone makes money in this system EXCEPT the content creators

Below are a series a graphics illustrate the pirate business model at work.  Pirate forum x264-bb is a web “forum” in the business of promoting pirated download links to a variety of  pirated movies and TV shows.  The site boasts strict guidelines for users to follow when posting links to their pirated content–ironic to say the least, particularly the admonition not to make more downloads (mirrors) “unless authorized by the original encoder.”  I guess there’s honor among thieves after all…

voxindiex264 guidelines for pirates1

Below is an example of a typical post on the forum, advertising download links for the movie “Despicable Me”  by a user aditkhan (who boasts over 6,899 posts).

Pirate movie forum post

Pirate uploaders generally post “mirrored” links (identical files on multiple sites) so that downloaders aren’t disappointed if the first set of links disappears.  In this case he has posted identical links on cyberlockers FileParadox.com and RyuShare.com.  Note that the movie file offered in multiple parts to increase page views and profits.

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Below is one of the downloads link on FileParadox.  Note the inducements to purchase “premium” subscription as well as a Google-served AdSense advertisement at the bottom of the page that ironically promotes AdSense.

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If downloaders do want to sign up for premium service (and access to high-speed downloads of stolen files) they can pay using Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express and more.

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Even if the downloader doesn’t choose to become a premium member, FileParadox still earns income thanks to Google’s AdSense advertising.

Google Adsense on pirate site

I created an account on FileParadox in order to show you what their reporting page looks like.  There are various ways uploaders can earn money by uploaded stolen content: # of downloads, # of premium accounts sold, and referrals.

Piracy profiteers

Aditkhan reminds forum members to “support” him by creating an account (referral) and upgrading (premium sales).  It doesn’t seem like a stretch to guess that aditkhan wouldn’t be so busy stealing, uploading and sharing links if he didn’t make money doing so.  Clearly Google, Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express apparently don’t mind adding to their coffers and taking a cut of the action either.   Their voluntary “best practices” agreements seem–at this point–to be full of holes.,,

voxindiebitcoin-pirate-x264-bb6

 

Google Wants to Pass the Buck on Piracy, but Keep Theirs?

Google Wants to Pass the Buck on Piracy, but Keep Theirs?

by | Ad Sponsored Piracy, Copyright, Google, Piracy

Screen Shot 2013-02-18 at 7.25.31 PMIt’s no surprise that anytime there’s discussion about finding effective ways to combat online piracy Google’s name seems to be in the mix.  When the subject does come up, the constant refrain from Google officials is that they’re doing everything they can–but how much is just PR posturing versus real action?

Check out Google’s latest apparent stratagem.  In a story by Katherine Rushton published on 2/16/13 in The Telegraph  “Google looks to cut funds to illegal sites,” she reported that the company is pushing payment processors to cut off the flow of money sites linked to online piracy.

Google is in discussions with payment companies including Visa, Mastercard and PayPal to put illegal download websites out of existence by cutting off their funding.  The web search giant, which is embroiled in a long-running row over the way it deals with pirated material, is considering the radical measure so that it can get rid of the root cause instead of having to change its own search results.

Executives want to stop websites more or less dedicated to offering links to pirated films, music and books from making money out of the illegal material. The plans, still in discussion, would also block funding to websites that do not respond to legal challenges, for example because they are offshore.

I’m not sure there’s anything very “radical” here.  In fact, cutting off the flow of money is actually one area where some progress has already been made.  PayPal, long a ubiquitous lifeline for such sites, has cut ties to numerous pirate cyberlockers including Putlocker, Mediafire, and Depositfiles.

Any progress in severing piracy’s blood supply is a certainly a good thing BUT for Google to claim the company is working to “block funding” of pirate sites–while simultaneously profiting from them–seems more than a tad disingenuous.  What about blocking access to funding via their AdSense accounts on YouTube and Blogger?  Why focus on Visa and Mastercard when one’s own house is in such disarray?

It’s not hard to find Google’s fingerprints on the dollars generated by online piracy. Here’s but a sampling I’ve documented from just the past few months:

  1. How Are Google’s Anti-Piracy Search Policies Working?
  2. Why Doesn’t YouTube Address the Real Content ID Fail?
  3. Blogspot.com-A Bridge to Piracy?
  4. Google Search #FAIL Means More $$$ for Them
  5. Google Complains that it’s Hard Work to Remove Reported Pirate Links
  6. Youtube Allows Pirate “Partners” to Profit From Illegal Movie Uploads
  7. Content Leeches-The Dark Underbelly of YouTube’s Content Monetization
  8. Chronic, Ill-Gotten Gains–Google’s Web of Piracy Profit
  9. YouTube (and Netflix) monetize online piracy
  10. 3 Strikes on YouTube and You’re OUT?  Maybe…
  11. Netflix Ads + Google Blogspot + Stolen Movies = Piracy Profits

More examples, going back nearly 3 years, can be found on my blog Pop Up Pirates-Who Profits from Piracy?  If Google is really serious about combatting piracy, shouldn’t they examine the skeletons in their own closet?

Ironically, the same day Ms. Rushton published her piece in The Telegraph, she also posted this story “Google’s copyright war rages on-UK creative industries want the internet giant brought to heel.”
But the creative industries are not yet satisfied. They want those websites that are the subject of tens of thousands of “take down” requests to be blocked altogether – sites like fenopy.eu and filestube.com whose primary purpose appears to be offering downloads of pirated content. They also claim that the changes Google has made to its algorithm are not particularly effective.

I couldn’t agree more.  Whether it’s Google’s search, YouTube, Blogger or AdSense, Google seems to have a finger in every slice of the piracy pie.  Apparently the only buck that stops in Mountain View is the kind that goes into the bank.