How we are tackling music piracy

In a fast paced and ever-changing technological landscape one thing remains constant: music piracy continues to be a huge problem for the industry.

In a fast paced and ever-changing technological landscape one thing remains constant: music piracy continues to be a huge problem for the industry. Last year, 20% of fixed-line internet users worldwide regularly accessed services offering copyright infringing music.

In our fight against music piracy on behalf of our members, we recognise the importance of investing in digital tools to help protect works from piracy. Earlier this year, we launched our new anti-piracy takedown tool.

The system, known as the ‘Member Anti-Piracy System’ (MAPS), has been developed in partnership with the Publishers Association. MAPS works by tracking and enabling users to request take down of PRS for Music repertoire which is made available to the public on unlicensed and infringing sites. It also allows users to send take down notices to Google, which has the power to remove search results.

MAPS trawls the web for infringing links and has been designed to give members greater control in protecting their repertoire. Within the system, members have the ability to select the work they want the tool to target and to add or replace repertoire to ensure that the greatest number of works are protected.

Since its launch, MAPS has:

• Located over 8.7 million URLs for sites linking to or hosting PRS for Music repertoire
• Sent over 213,500 take down notices to sites
• Sent over 342,000 links to Google for delisting
• Taken down 71% of hosting links

We have received positive feedback from many users stating that MAPS ‘works really well’, and that they ‘have had some good results’. We believe the more our members use it, the more infringements will be detected, as the tool is constantly evolving.

The system will also streamline other areas of our Anti-Piracy Unit's work, as it can identify repeat infringers which can then be tackled through PRS for Music’s working partnership with The City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU).

MAPS is currently available to a number of our larger publisher members who have been testing the system, with a wider roll out now in effect. PRS for Music members without access to MAPS can contact our Anti-Piracy Unit by emailing maps@prsformusic.com for removal of infringements of repertoire on their behalf.