RIAA & IPR Center Keep Battling Pirates

• The National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced a long-term agreement expanding and formalizing their partnership on digital antipiracy efforts. Under the signed memorandum of understanding (MOU), RIAA and the IPR Center will coordinate public and private sector efforts to disrupt and combat all forms of digital piracy.

Digital music piracy remains a major threat to artists, songwriters, and rightsholders, educing recorded music revenues in the United States by 50 percent during the peak periods of peer-to-peer network piracy, losses from which the industry has yet to fully recover.

In Dec. 2019, the IPR Center developed “Operation Intangibles” to combat transnational copyright infringements, and digital piracy activities. To date, the IPR Center, in conjunction with Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI, has leveraged vast authorities and international law enforcement partnerships to successfully intercept and dismantle multiple criminal organizations’ cyber piracy networks and arrest those responsible.

“Investigations into illicit streaming services are extremely complex; these services are typically operated from abroad through multi-faceted schemes that touch numerous countries,” said Ricardo Mayoral, Acting Director of the IPR Center. “Because of this complexity, our partnership with RIAA brings us one step closer toward dismantling criminal enterprises that think they are above the law, attempting to use the internet to hide illicit activity.”

Brad Buckles, RIAA’s Chief Content Protection Officer added, “Digital piracy is too big a problem for any one artist, industry, or agency to handle on their own. The expanded partnership we have signed today helps solve that problem — strengthening cooperation and coordination between law enforcement and the private sector to protect digital music and the broader creative economy. As global piracy operations evolve their tactics and innovate new ways to steal and profit from creative works, this MOU will empower creators and the federal government to work together on the cutting edge of this fast-moving fight.”