MediaDefender Goes Forward with P2P Marketing
Written by Ernesto on June 14, 2008Most people recognize MediaDefender for their clumsy anti-piracy efforts, but there is much more to them than that. In fact, they are warming up advertisers and record labels to use LimeWire and other file-sharing software to distribute millions of legitimate, but branded, MP3s.
MediaDefender has been experimenting with P2P marketing for quite some time now. Last year, it earned the company $560,000 and they hope to increase this figure in 2008. This new revenue stream is very welcome for them, since their anti-piracy operations aren’t as profitable as they used to be.
P2P marketing is a win-win situation according to MediaDefender, both advertisers and filesharers will benefit. It gives the advertiser “access to passionate fans of any choosing” and filesharers “…get what they want… free content with unique and compelling offerings that fit their personal tastes.”
But wait a second, what a strange world we are living in. A few months ago, Jammie Thomas lost her court case, and was ordered to pay the RIAA hundreds and thousands of dollars because she shared a few songs, and now the same record labels use filesharing networks to distribute their branded MP3s.
Similarly, the IFPI is trying to educate kids and parents about the great dangers of filesharing, while the record companies they represent hire MediaDefender to distribute authorized content on LimeWire and other P2P networks.
So, on the one hand record labels are going after people who distribute their files online, and at the same time they spam these networks with authorized copies. Strangely enough, there is no way for the filesharer to make sure whether a file is authorized or not.
I’m not a lawyer of course, but this double standard must have some legal implications. MediaDefender is even hosting a branded copy of Kayne West’s ’stronger’ on their own servers, and I assume they wouldn’t be infringing copyright.
Of course we asked MediaDefender to shed their light on some of these questions, but unfortunately, they did not respond to our inquiries. Probably too busy spoofing or DDoS-ing random BitTorrent trackers.
Previously: Pirate Tax Funds Pirate Album
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52 Responses
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They’ve already ruined too many lives with their lawsuits in the name or profit and killed too much freedom for me to want to stop pirating their music.
/me downloads
http://www.mediadefender.com/marketing/Kanye_West-Graduation-Stronger.zip
a couple of times, after all if it’s free it’s up for grabs, and if it’s up for grabs it’s fine with me if it gives their servers a hard time ;)
http://www.mediadefender.com/marketing/Timbaland-The_Way_I_Are.zip
They’re also hosting Timbaland with The Way I Are:
http://www.mediadefender.com/marketing/Timbaland-The_Way_I_Are.zip
Apparently some sort of marketing-thing. The header of the file says the following:
“”The Way I Are” sponsored by McDonald’s-go to http://www.McDonalds.com/music to see exclusive Timbaland concert footage and win backstage tickets to hang with Timbaland at his next show!” and it has an image attached to the mp3, which makes my itunes show like this:
http://i26.tinypic.com/33286lu.jpg
ah i found the catch, timbaland and kanye west isnt really music now is it.
(tongue in cheek.)
Flood their website :)
Download the free files as much as possible. hahaha
>>4
made me laugh, hard
Flood their website :)
Download the free files as much as possible. hahaha
“Probably too busy spoofing or DDoS-ing random BitTorrent trackers.”
I think you mean ‘DoS-ing’, not ‘DDoS-ing’. The recent denial of service attack from MediaDefender originated from a single server. Nothing distributed about it.
If you are downloading from their servers, you’re only giving them statistics to help convince companies to hire them……has that ever crossed your mind other than, “l3ts download and crash their serv3rs!1!!”
INSTEAD, why not boycott, and maybe, I don’t know, chew up their server some other way (not condoning anything btw, just saying how short-sighted some of you are here)
You’re only help promote the growth of evil corporate “sanctioned” p2p rising. Also helping Media Defender stay afloat.
http://www.savetheinternet.com
MD giving music away for free, at the same time as they’re spamming the networks with fakes, DDoSes or suing mails…
In what strange world are we livin in? (Clealy Pirated Sentence from Ernesto)
I knew nothing would come of the Dos attacks the FBI were supposed to be looking into. Bullshit how these companies can get away with this. If it was anyone else they’d be in jail by now.
So they push out 1600000 genuine(!) copies o fone song of one artist?
no body wnat it even pirated from “legitimate” pirates?
Why does that rember me about:
“At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. “That was the moment we realised the game was completely up,” says a person who was there.”
and
“”P2P is not piracy, it’s marketing.
In fact, if your music or movie is NOT being downloaded, you should be WORRIED!
If you can’t even give it away for free, how do you expect to sell it, stupid?”
so those label dinosaurs thing if they spam their shitty products now that will safe them from death?!
What a joke!
Even james@war observed this in his “Popstar”-song:
“I sing canned music that my label feeds me,oversaturate the market till everyone is sick of me,[oh trust me that will happen]”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uSlqI1AVUk
Yes, what’s authorized and what’s not these days? The RIAA have a list which they distribute to anti-p2p companies but I’ve never seen it and how many have? How would anyone even know what’s copyrighted or not? There’s a very large contingency of free music floating around also. Then there’s cover versions and remixes.
As well there are licensed sites that sell MP3s.
It depends on what software is used? Not anymore, since many are distributing and selling authorized files on same.
Btw the only way they’d get me to download 90% of today’s music is to pay me to do so. Then I’d delete it afterward.
Too little, too late. The industry made their bed, now let them die in it.
As for Randy Saaf, Octavio Herrara, and the rest of the scum at Media Defender, I would make it a point to go out of my way to not only boycott anything they offer but to continue them along the road to ruin. They must be crushed, shown no mercy, and be given no quarter for their crimes.
Never forget, never forgive.
Arrr. Ramming speed, mateys!
Strange world indeed. Maybe their plan is to track the files they’re seeding and record the IP addresses of those who are uploading in addition to downloading.
If they do this then they can make money two different ways.
1) They charge the record labels for marketing and distributing mp3s.
2) They charge the record labels for the list of IP addresses of the file sharers who are sharing these exact same mp3s.
Isn’t it time for another mediadefender Website breach? ;)
somweone dares to DL the dot exe file in the same dir though?
http://www.mediadefender.com/marketing/MediaDefenderP2PDemo.exe
http://www.mediadefender.com/marketing/
@17….
it’s a shitty flash animation showing how bad they fuck up Limewire. The ending is just priceless….I gotta upload this to jewtube
ohh money money money ♫♪
btw mediadefender must die
Mediadefender: pissing in your downstream while making a profit on your upstream.
Asshats.
Also, nice powerpoint, douches.
anything that comes from these goons should never be trusted
/Yes, what’s authorized and what’s not these days? The RIAA have a list which they distribute to anti-p2p companies but I’ve never seen it and how many have? How would anyone even know what’s copyrighted or not? There’s a very large contingency of free music floating around also. Then there’s cover versions and remixes./
@14: I only there was some way to uniquely identify a music file by running the data through some algorithm. It could create a small sequence of characters, let’s call it a hash, that would represent the file. If we were to change even a single byte in the file, the entire “hash” would change. Damn, if only there was a way. I guess we’ll have to wait until the future.
Although I’m not a legal expert either, I’m quite sure that you can still be nailed for copyright infringement for downloading & sharing so-called “authorized” MP3s.
Although MediaDefender is authorized to share those MP3s on P2P networks, YOU are not.
Unless the record company released the copyright of these songs to the public domain or Creative Commons (extremely unlikely!) — these MP3s are still copyrighted files and therefore all the Draconian penalties for copyright infringement still apply.
Assuming that MediaDefender is completely successful, then virtually ALL the MP3s on P2P networks will be ones they put out themselves. This will make nailing P2P users so much easier, since the ‘infringing’ files would already be identified and tagged in advance.
This resembles common police sting operation tactics: most of the child porn that exists on the internet today is put there (and closely monitored) by the authorities. Visit a CP honeypot site, download a JPEG — even if just out of innocent curiosity — and you can expect to wake up in the middle of the night by the sound of machinegun-toting FBI smashing down your door.
Just because all the incriminating material originated from the police makes no difference whatsoever. The same probably applies to MP3s that originate from MediaDefender.
a couple of my thoughts on this
1) its actually quite a good idea, and something that i was actually working on for a while myself, but school and stuff made in unfeasable to actually work on
2) of course mediadefender are allowed to share the tracks, its highly unlikely they would have a contract to prevent piracy of tracks with out the label’s permission to distribute/download the tracks, and as that falls under civil, not criminal law, thats an acceptable situation
3) people that say you could be sued for sharing the file onwards, its also unlikely, as although techically it may not be authorzied for you to share by the end users, however, i expect if it ever came to caught, one could argue that the fact the legit copy is on a p2p network acts as implicit consent as the architecture of peer to peer systems means that users seed on whilst downloading
well.. thats what i think of it anyway
I guess they finally try to make money out of p2p, just like you have to pay extra for blank CD’s. Máybe they are adapting to this way of entertainment. Oh well, forget that… No way that those guys will ever change :\
But well, since MD tried so hard to catch some pirates I don’t like them at all… perhaps another ‘anti-piracy’ group should DoS their server :p
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