For years RIAA and MPAA members have hired companies to attack popular BitTorrent swarms in an attempt to interfere with their downloads. According to a recently published paper by New York University researchers, these attacks are highly ineffective. At best, they slow downloads for a few minutes, something most users don’t even notice.
After kicking out founders Randy Saaf and Octavio Herrera earlier this year, MediaDefender’s parent company ARTISTDirect acquired one of RIAA’s former partners, the anti-piracy tracking company MediaSentry. Now the spoofers and the spies have been combined and are trading under a new name – Peer Media.
During the last few days a virus scam targeting torrent site users has reappeared. Internet users receive an email informing them they have been monitored by anti-piracy company MediaDefender on various torrent sites. Although a log file is included to ‘prove’ infringements, it contains what is being described as a “banking trojan”.
Following the departure of founders Randy Saaf and Octavio Herrera, the future for MediaDefender looked even more uncertain than it did previously. However, those concerned that their favorite anti-piracy spoofing company might drift away, fear no more. MediaDefender’s parent company just acquired everyone’s favorite anti-piracy tracking company, MediaSentry.
After suffering humiliation at the hands of a hacker in 2007, the future of anti-piracy company MediaDefender is in serious doubt. The stock price of its parent company has plunged, and the two founders of MediaDefender have now left the sinking ship.
MediaDefender is widely known for their anti-piracy operations, spoofing and decoying on file-sharing networks for the entertainment industry. The company is doing more than that though, as we recently found out that adult affiliate programs were a significant source of income for them too.
Exactly a year ago, the anti-piracy company MediaDefender was put to shame after a hacker gained access to their systems. Many of the deepest secrets of the company were published online, and now, twelve months on, the company is walking the plank to bankruptcy as its shares are worth less than one cent each.
A new trend is surfacing, as spammers have sent out millions of emails targeting BitTorrent users. The emails, that claim to come from MediaDefender, warn the receiver that he or she has been logged using BitTorrent and points them to an attachment supposedly containing evidence, but which is in fact infected with a virus.
MediaDefender and parent company ArtistDirect have had some serious setbacks recently. Last September they suffered a huge security breach when internal emails and a phone call were leaked to BitTorrent. They received even more bad press recently for DDoSsing Revision3. As a result, MediaDefender’s parent company stock dropped from $2.00 down to just 16 cents.
Most 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.
It has been a rough year for MediaDefender and their parent company ArtistDirect. Last September a database of internal emails leaked, and last week they received more bad press for DDoSsing Revision3. Unsurprisingly, MediaDefender’s revenue has dropped significantly as a result.
