Pirate Pay Earns Microsoft Support

Microsoft has given its backing to the Russian-developed Pirate Pay software that claims it can stop Internet users from downloading pirated content.

The technology has received funding from Microsoft Russia, as copyright holders seek to minimise their losses from illegal downloads.

Accidental discovery

Pirate Pay was initially devised as a traffic management solution for internet service providers (ISPs), but its creators discovered that it could also flood Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks with false information, hampering downloaders’ efforts to use torrents.

It poses as a real Bit Torrent user, but then confuses the network by causing disconnections. The software has been used by both Disney and Sony Pictures, with the developers claiming that it blocked 44,845 attempted illegal downloads of the recent Disney-made Russian film Vysotsky: Thanks to God, I am Alive.

Microsoft has rewarded Pirate Pay with one million rubles (£62,000) from a seed investment fund, but critics have argued it is a short-term measure and that thwarted pirates will simply try again later. Others have questioned the true financial impact of piracy on copyright holders, with the Swiss government ruling that downloading pirated content was to remain legal as downloaders then spent the money saved on other entertainment products.

Last month, five UK ISPs, Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media, were told to block access to filesharing site The Pirate Bay by the High Court. BT was asked last year, but is still discussing the details of the ban.

Virgin Media complied on 3 May, but The Pirate Bay called it “free advertising” and published a number of ways of circumventing the ban. However, hactivist collective Anonymous retaliated by launching a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Virgin Media’s website, a move that was criticised by the Pirate Bay as another form of censorship. Orange followed suit one week later, but no attack by Anonymous was forthcoming.

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