FAST claims victory in online piracy fight

Anti-piracy body celebrates success of online enforcement activities

Fighting piracy: FAST said latest campaign will shape its future enforcement activities

The Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) claims the success of its latest enforcement campaign will change the way it tackles online piracy in the future.

Last month, the association embarked on a trial anti-piracy project on behalf of FAST member Primal Pictures.

The firm specialises in 3D human anatomy software and the aim of FAST’s campaign was to reduce the online distribution and listing of illegitimate copies of its products.

To achieve this, the association contacted Google to request the removal of listings from websites, forums and blogs that claimed to be legitimate sources of the software.

FAST claims the project had ensured that illegal rankings no longer dominated Google and that consumers were less likely to become exposed to them.

John Lovelock, chief executive of FAST, said: “Not only were we successful in taking down 63 [listings] from Google, we eradicated 41 forum postings and tackled a host of images containing infringing representations of the Primal product.”

The technique’s success was so great that FAST is intent on employing it during future online piracy probes, added Lovelock.

“Digital piracy is not victimless and this new campaign will add a new string to our bow in the fight against intellectual property theft,” he said.

Peter Allan, chief executive of Primal Pictures, said he was delighted with the initiative’s outcome.

“The overall result was to substantially change the first three pages of a Google search, by replacing infringing content with positive content from the rights holder, which in this case was Primal Pictures,” he said.