Fighting music piracy
Our Rights Protection Unit is here to protect the copyright of PRS members. The team helps UK enforcement agencies and other anti-piracy teams to investigate copyright infringements and, when necessary, take legal action.
Our Member Anti-Piracy System (MAPS)
Our Member Anti-Piracy System (MAPS) tracks links to unlicensed and infringing sites that are using our members' work. Once logged-in, members can easily see where their work is being used illegally and trigger a delisting notice to Google.
Since its launch in 2016, MAPS has:
- Reported over 6.7 million URLs to sites linking to or hosting PRS for Music repertoire
- Removed 76% of infringing URLS
- Sent over 424,000 live links to Google and Bing for delisting results from its search pages
- Been instrumental in forcing 1,346 infringing sites to cease operating completely
If you’re a PRS member, you can sign up to our Member Anti-Piracy System (MAPS). Once you have an account, you can easily report any breaches of your copyright. Email us at maps@prsformusic.com with your name and CAE/IPI number. We’ll be in touch to set up your account.
Report music piracy
If you know about a breach of copyright, or suspect a breach, please let us know by contacting us via our online form.
Tackling music piracy together
We work within a network of organisations to fight music piracy in all areas, including digital. Along with the agencies and organisations listed below, we also work closely with the Police, Trading Standards Departments and Customs & Excise.
The AIP's objective is to raise public and political awareness of copyright and trade mark issues so that intellectual property is highly valued by everyone from consumers to manufacturers, and to ensure as a result that copyright theft is treated as seriously as other theft.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Group is a not-for-profit trade association which campaigns against the trade in fake goods.
The BCC is an umbrella organisation bringing together organisations which represent those who create, or hold rights in literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works and those who perform such works. The BCC functions principally as a liaison committee for its member associations, providing them with a forum for the discussion of matters of copyright interest. It also acts as a pressure group for changes in copyright law at UK, European and International level.
The BPI represents hundreds of record companies in the UK. The BPI's Anti-Piracy Unit works to protect BPI members' rights and take action on their behalf.
FACT was formed in 1984 to combat counterfeiting, piracy and misuse of its members' products, initially targeting videotaped feature films, but increasingly investigating copyright infringement involving DVD and other digital formats. FACT deals primarily with Customs, the Police and Trading Standards Offices, providing expert technical examination services for evidential purposes and the gathering of evidence to justify enforcement action or prosecution by the relevant authority. FACT also undertakes private prosecutions on behalf of its members.
With a long history of working with both software publishers and end users, FAST has built up a high degree of expertise and knowledge that can be drawn upon by members to help in the day to day management of software and any issues that may arise.
www.gov.uk/government/organisations/intellectual-property-office
We’ve worked with the IPO to create a database for Trading Standards Officers (TSOs) to locate and prosecute cases where intellectual property offences have been committed.
UKIE is a membership organisation representing all companies concerned with the publishing and distribution of interactive leisure and entertainment software. It works to promote the interests of all its members as well as addressing issues that affect the industry
as a whole.
