How Piracy Persists on the Internet

Welcome back to the Bullwork goes to Hollywood. My name is Sunny Bunch culture editor at the Bulwark. And I’m very pleased to be joined today by Karen Temple of the MPA. She is the senior executive vice president and global general counsel for the motion picture association, one of the world’s leading authorities on copyright. Karen, you had one of the the best titles.

Of any of any person in government or elsewhere. Right? What what was your actual title at at the at the end of your tenure in the copyright office?

It oh, thank you. And it’s a pleasure to be here, Sunny. The title was the, United States, Register of Copyrights and the director of the US copyright So it’s a double title, I guess, in a way. But that person is the the head of the United States copyright office, who runs that four hundred plus person organization.

I just love that register of copy rights. I am the register of copy rights. It is a that is a that’s a delightful, title. And, I’m I’m really happy to have you on today because we’re gonna be talking about something that’s near and dear to my heart, which is the fight against piracy. When when I tell people that I am, I it it’s a thing that makes me angry.

They often look at me very confused. They’re like, you know, with all the problems in the world that’s piracy that gets you going. But, yes, It is. It drives me crazy. And I would I wanna relate one story before we get started here to kind of explain why.

I went to see, Priscilla. I went to see Priscilla, the a twenty four movie. It was out in theaters, went to I went to the my local angelica, I sat down, it toward the back, because that’s where I usually like to sit, and the movie starts, and somebody in the the front section, you know, the the lower seats, not the raised ones, pulled out their phone, and started recording it. Just that boop and was recording it, and I could see it. I could see it all happening.

It was very distracting because it was on the screen and then it was on the little screen. And I thought, okay. Maybe he’s just gonna do this for a minute. And he’s maybe he’s getting a meme or something. He’s gonna make this a TikTok thing.

I don’t know. I’m I’m I I don’t really wanna have to get out of my seat. But it kept going for two or three minutes. And I was just like, alright, this guy stopped. Went down there.

I was like, sir, I I can see that behind you. You have to stop doing this. Or I’m gonna go now. Sure. And he was like, but I’m not bothering anybody.

It’s like, wrong. You are bothering me. But also, This is just what I imagine happens all the time all around the world. People just kind of taking cam rip movie little videos on their phone and then putting it on the inter so, alright. So let’s say this guy was like an actual pirate.

Right? He’s a he’s dedicated to getting this on the internet. What is his next step? What does what do you have to fight against when he gets that file and goes home and uploads it to his computer, and then it goes god only knows where.

Well, that’s the pro problem. It it does go god only knows where. And so that’s why we have, you know, a number hundreds literally of investigators and lawyers and other content protection officials that we work with both in the United States, but, you know, quite frankly, elsewhere overseas as well because what he will like we do is go home, as you said, upload it to his computer, send it to a location somewhere outside of the United States. It could be Vietnam. It could be Korea.

It could be China. And those operators will then potentially upload it to a yet another service. They might upload it to a video hosting service. They might upload it to a, you know, a cyber locker. They could decide to share it on a bit torrent site or some other peer to peer site, and then it goes viral.

And it’s not only in the United States. It’s in every country that has access to the internet. And that’s what we are are dealing with on a day to day basis.

So, I had one of your colleagues on a couple months back, and we talked about, the MPAs three hundred sixty degree strategy. Basically, I talked to her about how you stop files from leaking beforehand. How you how you keep things locked down in house to make sure, you know, pre release stuff doesn’t get out there. And that’s obviously a huge problem and, you know, studios have to do. All sorts of safety measures to stop that.

But then there’s the Ron DeSantis a movie has been released and is in the world, there there’s only so much the studios can do. There’s really not very much her studios can do. There’s not a whole lot that theaters can do. The theaters are understaffed. They don’t have the the manpower to send in security guards into every screening.

So, you know, the so what is what is the what is the, I guess, the back half of that three hundred sixty degree strategy? Once it’s been released, you guys, kind of step in and say, alright. Here’s what we’re how we’re gonna fight this here, here, here. How does that work?

Yeah. And it and, you know, it it might depend on the the the specific, target type of release location. So we we have a variety of methods, but that is, I I think coordination. Global coordination is is really a pillar for us because of the global nature of digital piracy as we just discussed, you know, it’s gonna go from the United States potentially or from one country to another very quickly. And what we will do is marshal the global footprint that we currently have through our organization, the Alliance for creativity and entertainment where we actually have, again, lawyers and investigators in multiple countries around the world, as well as contacts with law enforcement in multiple countries around the world.

Depending on the specific target, it could be that we decide that going the criminal route is the most effective way. That usually is when we have a jurisdiction that we know, that we work with closely. It might be something like the United, you know, we if the operators are located in the United Kingdom or in Italy, we will go to the tho those jurisdiction those jurisdictions and specifically the law enforcement teams in those jurisdictions and say, we have traced the operators of this particular illegal service to your country, can you help us to shut this down? But unfortunately, sometimes, There are operators who are located in other countries where we don’t have, quite the cooperation that we would like. Or it’s just difficult.

They have, you know, not as many resources to go after, those, illegal services. So we might decide that we’re not gonna be able to to, rely on the criminal law enforcement in that particular country, either we might try civil litigation in the United States, but sometimes that’s difficult, you know, getting the jurisdiction here But an option is civil litigation. We also do a lot of self help. So in those countries, we if we can find and we often can, find the operator. So we’ll find the individuals that the person in the United States sent the the file to.

We will actually go to their homes. And we Will Saletan will we know where you are. And we plan on, so, you know, we litigating against you, directly if you are if you don’t stop. Your illegal activity. So we have people on the ground in those countries who will, you know, sometimes serve direct season to sit what we call season to sis letters on those individuals, letting them know that we are about to to sue them civilly.

We also, potentially might do something that is very effective for us where we’re not able to shut down the site. We might, decide that another a method is cutting off access to the site and this and cutting off money to the site. Basically trying to kind of choke all of the various, you know, all of the various resources that the height the site has, to exist. So that would in involve from our perspective going to those jurisdictions where we have, a regime called site blocking, which prevents access to the site in those in those jurisdictions. It might be working cooperate cooperatively with the advertising companies or search engines or others who, are used, you know, are supporting the site unknowingly, to say cut off their access to Mastercard and Visa.

Make sure they’re removed from search results. So we it depends on the the specific target and the jurisdiction, but, typically, it’s a it’s a choice or between criminal referrals. So working with law enforcement direct civil litigation sometimes, again, where we go first directly to them and, if they don’t, desist, then we sue them, and and and voluntary cooperation with our kind of intermediary partners, to disrupt the site in some way and make it less effective.

It’s interesting. You mentioned going to the the search engines and asking them to to kind of, block those sites. I I’m curious what the How I I I’m I’m I’m curious how how you guys have, how how good that relationship is with the the the search engines, because I know there was some there was some friction back when the, stop I’m on pie piracy act was being argued the Google and and the tech companies were like, well, this is gonna This is bad. We don’t wanna have to have have the side blocking, but I I do also, you know, you see DMCA takedowns. On on websites all the time.

You see people complaining about them, you know, sometimes. So how how does that relationship actually work? Do you just send them a letter? Say, hey, you gotta gotta get rid of these guys. What’s the process, sir?

Yeah. And so, I mean, and and it depends. We were initially talking about those kind of commercial level wholesale illegal services. Those types of services whose sole purpose is infringing, you know, our content and, you know, supporting often, these, you know, mob organizations and and criminal organizations are not gonna respond to the DMCA notice take down process. And so that is something that we do, use in the United States.

You know, primarily for UGC user generated content where we’ll send notices and we send millions, to the YouTube or the Facebooks or Metas of the world where we say this has, been uploaded by an individual. It should not be up there. It is Will Saletan we constantly do that. But with respect to the the the true illegal services, the commercial services, they’re not gonna respond. And so we don’t do the DMCA takedown because they’re not gonna take down, the infringing services.

What we instead do, yes, is sit down with the Googles of the world, the metas of the world, the advertisers of the world to say do you realize that, you know, the this particular illegal site is, you know, advertising through your, you know, company. Do you realize that this illegal site is using Mastercard or Visa obviously, you don’t want to to to have, your brand in any way connected to any legal service that might be, you know, funneling money back to a Russian, you know, legal Russian, casino. And, you know, Google. Do you do you want to have as a if somebody’s searching the movie Superman, do you really want to have the top twenty search results go to an illegal service? And I would say that now in light of the development of the technology, and the clear effectiveness of things like site blocking.

I think we’ve gone come a long way since those initial Sopa Pippa conversations where There was a lot of heated rhetoric that if, you know, you cooperated with content and, you know, restricted access to sites somehow that would you know, harm the internet or kill the internet. That is really not has not been the experience in the last ten years that we’ve been doing this in forty different countries. And so what we actually see is more collaboration and cooperation from the ISPs that we work with and from the intermediaries we work with. They don’t want to support illegal services. So, you know, it’s a matter of pointing out that you don’t wanna support, you know, illegal services and working with them cooperatively to, to disrupt those services.

So I think those conversations have really got come a long way, and we are actually in a much better position with, the intermediaries that we work with than we have in the past. And So, you know, in the in the motion picture association, for example, we have a specific individual and team that is dedicated to just intermediary outreach. So, you know, we have our civil litigation team. I have my, criminal, you know, referral and investigative team But I also have, you know, people who just work on, you know, having those specific conversations with intermediaries to ensure that we can disrupt these illegal services. So that’s something new, but it shows, you know, how, positive the relationship can be if we work together, to make sure that we’re not supporting illegal services.

Well, let’s I let’s talk a little bit about sight blocking because I was again, I I I am a copyright hawk, in a very real way. I’ve I’ve support, you know, most of. But I do remember when when Sopa was being argued, the the issue of Cyplocking came up and I Will Saletan to being a little bit, you know, hesitant to say, well, I don’t know that I want I don’t know that I want the government to have the power to just, like, push a button and block off access to a site. Understandably, it makes sense in this context, but that’s, you know, they’re slippery slope arguments. So let’s let’s discuss what that actual process looks like.

You know, the judiciary steps involved, that sort of thing. What does it when you say, alright, site blocking, what does that actually mean?

Yeah. And I think, unfortunately, I I I think I was at the corporate office during these conversations, and you know, we were heavily in involved at the time and just reviewing those issues. And there was a lot of, again, heated rhetoric about what would potentially happen in the Again, the sky is falling rhetoric. And at the time, there wasn’t a lot of experience with site blocking because Some countries had site blocking, during Sopa and Pippa, but we didn’t we didn’t have site blocking in a large number of countries. Whereas now, there are, as I said, forty, you know, countries who are who are implementing various site blocking regimes.

And I think the important thing to emphasize with those regimes are that This is not a situation where the the framework allows an individual content owner to come and just have an ex parte communication with either the, and that’s, you know, a a a conversation without the the potential defendant either with the government or, with the court to say site block. There is an actual framework in in these countries which allows for due process. So the defendant is notified. The legal service is notified and it has an opportunity to be heard. In these cases in which they’re, you know, we’re we’re requesting Cyplock.

So, basically, we will go to we will go to the court Sometimes it’s an administrative body in in certain countries, but we will go to to to the court and, you know, say, here’s our evidence. Very clear evidence that this is a structurally infringing site. We’re not talking about, you know, a UGC site that somebody might have uploaded, an illegal movie, but also their their their uploaded their, you know, grandmother’s home videos. This is clearly in infringing sites. Here’s all of the, evidence that we have.

And therefore, we need to get this site blocked in this jurisdiction. Then the court will give an opportunity for the legal site to come forward if they so choose and say, no. We’re not structurally infringing. We we are a legitimate service and only after that process where there is an opportunity for that defendant to come in and make, you know, arguments that that somehow this is, an error or is is not you know, legally sound will a court then order site blocking. And a court will require us and we do, monitor the site blocks to ensure that, we have the right domain names that we have the white IP addresses that there’s no, effect on legitimate sites And in our, experience doing site blocking for the last ten years overseas, again, the instances of potential kind of what we would consider over blocking are are are basically nonexistent.

We have such a a good process in now where we identify structurally infringing services. We know what the domains are, and we only address those domains. We’re constantly twenty four seven, checking to see if they’ve hopped to a different domain so that we are not blocking sites that are legitimate sites.

I mean, how much of this is whack a mole? Like, how much of it is, you know, the the you you take down one site and then the same exact site pops up and instead it’s instead of being, you know, one two three piracy, it’s one two four piracy dot com.

Yeah. I mean, I will say that that, you know, that is becoming an increasing problem or issue. And we don’t wanna get to a point of of the whack a mole that we have, for example, with the notice and take down regime where where where we send notices and then immediately the, you know, the the link or, the file goes back up and we have to send yet another notice. In the case of site blocking, what works most effect effectively for us, what we’ve seen is that having a situation where we have what we call dynamic site blocking And that is, again, we’re monitoring constantly to see if something has, you know, hopped a domain, and and to ensure that somehow there’s not any you know, effect on a legitimate domain name or or site. So those regimes that are kind of the most effective allow for a streamlined process with respect to, site blocking.

If someone says, yeah, you had, you know, you know, restricted access to one two three movies dot, you know, x y z, and now it’s one two four movies dot x y z, we can go back in. We don’t have to start from scratch. But we can just show that essentially this is a this domain has just hopped to another domain, but it’s going back to the original, website, and then we are able to very quickly and efficiently site block that as well. So that is, I think, the way that we handle, you know, kind of the potential whack a mole problem. And then the other way that we handle it is Again, it’s a multi prong, effort.

So it is working with the search engines as well, saying to the, you know, the search engines of the world, we have blocked these sites and these jurisdictions. And in those jurisdictions, and where where they have been blocked, ensure that they are not available to be searched and and and and come up in as a result. And in those jurisdictions. And that has been, again, another way we are ensuring that we’re very, very effective. It’s not just the site block.

It’s the site block plus ensuring that search and results don’t come back with these sites or related domains, you know, to have unsuspecting civilians go to the to the websites.

Yeah. What what which countries, has this rolled out in? Because, yeah, I I we we talk about partner countries, but I I I do think it I I think it’s mildly reassuring to hear the countries that have actually rolled this out. It’s not Well, it’s it I’ll I’ll say it’s not, you know, all repressive regimes is is is how I would put it.

Right. And that’s one of the things that we we like to, you know, emphasize when we’re, you know, talking to either legislators in the United States or elsewhere who are considering developing a site blocking framework. Again, the experience is not experience in these repressive regimes. They’re we have direct experience in regimes that have dem democratic values that respect free speech in the same way we do. So the United Kingdom, of course, is is one of them they’ve had, side blocking for some time.

Canada, Australia, India, Brazil, South Korea, Israel. So there are a number of regimes out there that are democratic regimes that have these protections. We support those protections in in terms of due process. So we, you know, when we’re advocating for site blocking. We say we we agree that there should be due process protections, and they have been able to be very successful in implementing a framework that works to to go after the worst of the worst infringers but does not affect the average consumer’s, ability to access legitimate sites.

And, what what is the what is the effect of the site blocking? I mean, I I’ve I’ve read, that that it’s not just cutting down on, you know, what what’s out there illegally, it also aids the the actual, you know, legitimate side

Yeah. And I think that’s something, again, that when we were talking about Sopa Pippa, you know, we we didn’t have necessarily an organization like the MPA has now in the alliance for creativity and entertainment where, you know, we have, you know, again, the dedicated staff more than a hundred individuals working on these issues. We have a research team that is focused on strategy and efficacy of all of our enforcement methods. So we don’t want to have a regime that doesn’t work. It doesn’t that doesn’t the, you know, the content owners.

So we regularly research the efficacy of all of our enforcement methods. And what we’ve been able to find with site blocking is that it not only obviously restricts access to the site. And so it, you know, it prevents people from going to, the legal sites, but it also has a follow on effect on encouraging legitimate sites. And we see an, a significant, a statistically significant impact on and increase usage to the legitimate sites when we do site blocking waves. And that’s something that we constantly work to make sure that we are doing even more strategy and research to say, okay.

You know, maybe multiple waves of site blocking will even increase the number of people going to legitimate services maybe adding, as a strategy, site blocks with some criminal refer referrals will help, in terms of increasing the impact of, those site blocks. So we do a lot of research to ensure that not only does it have, you know, effect on the the the service themselves, but you know, it affects the the overall economy by actually, you know, encouraging the average consumer to go to legitimate services. And I would say the average consumer probably doesn’t wanna get their their, movies from an illegal service if especially when you think about the fact that that illegal service might be, again, this, you know, Russian casino, legal casino that you Nuh, don’t necessarily wanna have access to, your information, data, and credit cards, and would prefer to go to a legitimate site.

Well, it’s it’s funny because I was I was reading your, your testimony before Congress back in December, I think it was. And there there was a section in there that that I had never actually seen before. It had never really even occurred to me, but, the number of people who sign up for one of these sites where the credit card didn’t suddenly find charges in the Philippines or, you know, elsewhere is is pretty high. Right?

Yeah. I mean, and and that’s one of the things where I think that’s an effective, message for us to use with consumers. Obviously, we we we hope that consumers care about creators and the creative economy and the amount of bill the billions of dollars that the movie industry is able to contribute to the US economy. But if you don’t care about that issue, and you’re you you wanna focus on just yourself, you know, the the research demonstrates that those who pay for it, for example, pay for these illegal services with cards are three or four times more likely to be victims of identity theft and malware than those who do not. So it it it yours there’s a self interest for for consumers to avoid going to these illegal websites in addition to not wanting to harm not only the movie industry, but all of those follow one industries, that and smaller business that rely on the movie industry in order to, make a living.

I well, it’s it’s funny too talking about paying for piracy because I think most people, when they imagine, online piracy in particular, it’s like, I’m gonna go click on the site and download download this thing for free. And, you know, that’s why I’m I’m doing it, but that’s not that’s not the the entirety or or the extent of online piracy. Let’s just run through because again, I I come from, you know, look, I was in college from two thousand to two thousand four. Which was kind of the prime, years of Napster and Kazaa. And and those, you know, the peer to peer side.

So my my idea of piracy is is slightly different, than how it actually exists now in the in in the in the real world, how how people actually use it. So let’s let’s run through some of these. Alright. So you have you have the linking and streaming websites. What are what are how do these work?

Yeah. So the the linking and and and and streaming websites, I mean, these are sites that are kind of aggregating and and and organizing links to separate websites that you can go to, to actually get access to the content. So you know, they would you would go into this, linking site and there will be literally a list of links that you can click on that will take you to, an illegal website that has that is actually they’re not hosting the illegal website themselves. They’re just giving you a way to get to that illegal website. So that’s something we see.

We also, of course, see the the the direct download cyber lockers, kind of bidding video hosting services that are often the ones that are being linked to from the linking sites that are actually physically hosting the the illegal content. Those are like, we mix drop, for example, is one of those. And that’s where you you go to that site, you click on it and you’re actually directly, getting access to you know, the illegal content. And then what you kind of referenced a little bit earlier, we have, you know, illegal IPTV services. And these are actually subscription services.

So you’re right. These are services that people are paying or subscribing to get, I, you know, I think sometimes, and we find that it’s, you know, they’re they are unwitting, you know, participants in criminal activity in the sense that you know, they have flashy websites. Sometimes these websites look almost exactly like, you know, real websites. They they do request you to to subscribe and pay. So the maybe the average consumer might not know that, wow, this website, even, you know, that I’m putting my information into, and I’m paying something for is actually an illegal website.

The, I think, the the what you would would tip you off is that unlike a Netflix or a Disney Plus that has access to just a few, you know, channels or things like that. And, you know, this is an IPTV service that’s giving you access to every single, subscription service out there and all of the various channels that those services provide. So that might tip you off that why can I get access to hundreds and hundreds of channels, for five dollars when I know, sign up to and I, you know, the a legitimate, subscription service, you know, costs a much more to get access to fewer channels and fewer content? So that might give you a little clue. But but the technology is, you know, so advanced that, you know, as I said, the websites look very you know, they look very professional.

And that’s why messaging and, you know, we focus on trying to get the message out for to consumers as well as our kind of direct day to day enforcement that going to these sites is harmful to you as well. And we’ve actually done recently. We did a PSA with the Department of Homeland Security on the connection between mouth, Bulwark, and you know, identity theft from these types of websites. And so that’s something that we like to emphasize as well to ensure that, you know, consumers aren’t you know, unwittingly allowing themselves to to to, you know, be harmed.

Yeah. I I mean, it’s, yeah, I can’t believe this deal I found. It’s, you know, it’s it’s too good to be true.

Sometimes. Yeah. You could be to be true is in fact too good to be true.

Alright. And and then there are the the piracy devices and apps. And when I when I hear this, what I imagine is, like, the guy who comes to your house and, like, changes the settings on your cable box to get you get all you slip him a fifty dollar bill and you get everything. That’s that’s kind of what I’m I’m envisioning here.

Yeah. No. That’s that’s very, very similar. You have, you know, certain devices that you know, can give you act you know, that gives you act access legitimately to subscription services and and others, but then you have devices that, you know, and we call them ISDs, a list of streaming devices that are come kind of come preloaded with those apps already the legal apps already on the device so that you once you plug it in, you know, and it, you know, and connect it to the internet, Now you have access to all those IP illegal IPTV services that I just mentioned through the device. And, you know, that’s something, I mean, we they’re a multitude of them like lock lock and, movie box, but they are out there.

You know, we work again very collaboratively, for example, with, app stores. If, you know, so that it, you know, because an app store doesn’t want, you know, to expose their customers to illegal apps, either. So we work very collaboratively with app stores to say, you know, to identify illegal apps and make sure that they get removed, but there’s, you know, a lot of them out there. And so that is something that, you know, that we also do And, again, it’s a multi pronged enforcement approach that, you know, we do criminal referrals, civil litigation, direct action against the the app store not the App Store, but the app, but then also work cooperatively with that App Store to make sure that, that those apps aren’t, you know, being sold on a legitimate service, a legitimate app store.

Yeah. And then there’s, let’s see. The, the the peer to peer networks, the bit torrents. Again, that that is kind of what I

But you would call them. Yeah.

Yes. That’s that’s that’s my that’s what I am familiar with. I feel like Bitcoinrent has been a pain in everybody’s side for a very long time now. Why why is Bitcoinrent so hard to, get a get a handle on?

Yeah. I I think peer to peer, yeah. I mean, I I remember when I was, back at the recording industry association of America, doing content protection, And, you know, it was the, you know, it was the music side that was really feeling the pain of peer to peer Bulwark. The the film side hadn’t yet gotten to that point because the technology actually didn’t exist. I mean, it was taking hours and, to to be able to you know, download the the the content of a film films.

I think it’s it’s difficult because of the decentralized nature of peer to peer networks where you you have, again, hundreds of people throughout the world, just contributing a a piece of a a file. And then the the network itself, being able to put that file together and and allowing you to to see the the all of the content It’s difficult to go after. The operators sometimes because you can’t find quote unquote the individual who’s behind that particular our operation. And then there’s, you know, again, multiple computers that are actually in, you know, involved in the swarm. So to speak of, of, content that’s coming down.

So that can be difficult. And, and it’s probably one of the reasons why it still exists. I will say though, mean, although peer to peer still exists and it’s something that we go after, again, we’re increasingly seeing direct cyber locker, illegal cyber lockers, IPDVs subscription services, and the way they’re kind of able to avoid the traps, that cause the rise of, like, a peer to peer, which is the centralized nature of, of, their operations, is to essentially go to countries where they feel like it’s gonna be difficult or impossible for us to, to go after them, and have different aspects of the business being different, parts of the world. So they might have their server servers that’s hope that are that is hosting the content in one location. The operators might be in another location.

They’re using cryptocurrency, and yet another, you know, that being done through yet another location or entity. So the the piracy services are are trying to get out ahead of us, and that’s why we spend so much time. Ensuring that we have really an effective network to go go after them wherever they may be located.

One last one last angle here that I I am curious about, and I don’t know a ton about, so I’m I’m hoping you can you can fill me in, is, the world of live sports piracy, because that is I I feel like with the with the exploding value of sports rights, you know, uh-uh, a company pays several billion dollars for the English premiership league. Right? You you know, the the the, I’m sorry. The English Premier League, the, you know, or soccer or cricket or whatever. And then and then somebody in another country is like, well, I wanna watch this, but I can’t, or I don’t wanna subscribe to the the channel, or I don’t the dish I need, you know, whatever.

So they’re like, well, I’m gonna go on Reddit and find the link and then watch it. How how does that work? What is what’s what are I mean, I the companies must be pretty aggressive about trying to stop that because it’s it’s gotta be terrible for their their business model.

Yeah. I mean, you know, it is. Because, you know, obviously, you know, it’s it’s harmful for, you know, the business model of a full for, you know, feature film is you know, download it and and, you know, and put up on an illegal service, you know, in the first couple of weeks of of the release, But when you’re dealing with a live event that might last a few hours at most, and that when people wanna see the event in that for, you know, in the actual hours that it’s being transmitted and, you know, getting, you know, getting getting access to it later is not going to be something that people are gonna pay for. So having access to a live event through a pirated service and not being, you know, subscribing it to it, you know, officially will mean essentially you will not be able to re any economic returns because they’re not gonna come back and then, you know, subscribe to it later. So it’s really important that with respect to live sports, you’re able to disrupt access to those types of services immediately.

I mean, not with, you know, not days not even, you know, half a day. You need to do that within hours. And that’s where, you know, companies do, you know, really work aggressively on on dynamic site blocking to make sure that during the the time period of a of of a live sporting event that they can constantly update domains that need to be blocked so that those domains, you know, are not giving access during the the the event. And just ensuring that, again, they’re able to prevent the proliferation during the time period. But it it requires people often to stay up all night, ensure that, you know, you know when the live event is going to take place so you have to have you know, some of the the legal and operational investigation done ahead of time to say, okay, as soon as this live event is on, we are gonna be at the courthouse, ensuring that any, you know, access to these events is is disabled.

We are immediately, working with the search engines and others to make sure that links are not showing up in in search results. Again, because a a delay of twenty four hours in terms of removing a link, to a a live event essentially provides no, real world effectiveness on enforcement.

Yeah. Yeah. Then it’s fascinating. I’m just now I’m just imagining a bunch of lawyers sitting in a judge’s room somewhere watching soccer games on multiple TVs, being like we gotta get that one. That way it’s, fascinating stuff.

Alright. Well, that that was pretty much everything I wanted to to ask about, stopping stopping piracy and and, you know, the the work you guys are doing, I I, you know, I I I always like to close these interviews by asking if there’s anything I should have asked if there’s anything you you think folks should know about this or or any else in the world, of online piracy or what the MPA is doing just in general?

Yeah. I mean, the the the only thing I and I Will Saletan was very, very happy to to to hear you say that you were personally offended by the person in the movie theater who was, recording wouldn’t recommend individuals to go up to anybody, because these the a lot of these people are actually real criminals. But I I think, you know, it is important or the average consumer to understand that this is not the the digital piracy is not a victimless crime. I think it’s easy to understand that you know, when somebody gets their car stolen and that that’s that’s a crime. It’s easy to understand even, you know, when, you know, handbags or clothing or is stolen from, from the store.

It’s it’s a crime that has real world impact. But sometimes it’s difficult for people to really, you know, comprehend the harm that’s stealing a movie causes. And so one of the things that we we like to to just you know, emphasize that it, you know, yes, you see the glamorous Hollywood actors and you see the studios, but a lot of people beyond those glamorous actors and studio heads are involved in making movies and and making money from movies. You’re talking about hairdressers. You’re talking about, painters for sets.

You’re talking about electricians. You’re talking about individual small businesses and the majority of businesses that support the movie industry or small businesses of family businesses. And so when piracy occurs, it actually directly impacts those individuals as well. So we wanna, you know, really, let people you know, know and and and emphasize so that they understand that it isn’t a victimous climb and you’re not just affecting the the major actors, but you’re actually potentially affecting your neighbors, who might run a small business, and not be able to run that small business anymore because movies aren’t being able to be funded, and more movies are not being able to be done in their location because of of piracy. So it’s that’s something that I think it’s important to really emphasize.

Again, you’re right. You probably shouldn’t I should not have gone up to that guy, but it was it it really was more more just the distraction of the second screen. I I could not I could not focus on what was happening on the because there was a little bright box down at the bottom of the, if he had been a little sneakier, probably would’ve gotten away with it.

Alright. I will say if you ever need a job as an investigator, let me know. Shoot me your resume.

Okay. Well, I will do. Alright, Karen. Thank you so much for being on, the show today. Again, I I’ve been talking to, Karen Temple of the MPA.

The motion picture association, very exciting, to have you on. Again, this is a topic near and dear to my heart. Thanks. Thanks for being on the show.

Thank you so much.

Once again, my name is Sunny Bunch. I am culture editor at the Bulwark, and I will be back next week with another episode of the Bulwark goes to we’ll see you guys