One of the anti-piracy firms has recently revealed the scope of their piracy monetization efforts: it turned out that the company sends out 1.1 million notices to American Internet service providers per week. This is quite a massive number, though only a small percentage would ever reach the alleged infringers.



Back in February 2013, 5 of the American broadband providers began sending copyright notifications to customers who allegedly pirate films, TV shows and music. Within the first year, they sent out 1.3 million warnings to notify account holders that their connection was used to share illegal material. Nevertheless, its scope pales in comparison to what others are doing.

According to anti-piracy outfit CEG TEK, which is also sending out warning letters on behalf of copyright owners, their version comes with a sting: aside from the traditional slap on the wrist their notices also offer infringers to settle for up to hundreds of dollars. Such emails are sent as regular DMCA notices to Internet providers who then redirect them to their subscribers.

CEG TEK informed that in 2013 they sent out 26 million notices to US ISPs. This number may double in 2014, because the firm now sends out 1.1 million notices every week. This is a huge number, but since not all providers are happy with the process, not many subscribers finally receive the settlement offer to the respective account holder. The anti-piracy firm currently sends out requests to almost 3,500 ISPs, but only 10% of them forward the settlement offer. Sometimes they forward only the notice without the request for a settlement – for instance, this is what Comcast is doing all the time. Despite the fact that the anti-piracy firm would want the providers to forward the entire notice, they also value the curtailed ones.

The company explains that there are various levels of cooperation, and success doesn’t always mean receiving a settlement from an account holder. The copyright owners are also happy when they can just get their anti-piracy message heard. The interesting fact here is that there are also many Internet service providers who do not even bother to forward anything. They say under the DMCA they aren’t obliged to send the warnings to their clients.

CEG TEK has also collected information on how their notices influence piracy rates and is going to publish in the future.