MediaSentry was a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

company that provided services to the music recording, motion picture, television, and software industries for locating and identifying

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...

es that are engaged in the use of online networks to share material in a manner said organizations claim is in violation of

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

. Their most notable customers were several trade associations including the

Motion Picture Association of America The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distribu ...

and

International Federation of the Phonographic Industry The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is the organisation that represents the interests of the recording industry worldwide. It is a non-profit members' organisation registered in Switzerland and founded in Italy in 19 ...

. The company provided several services for this purpose, such as monitoring popular forums for

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...

, aid in litigation, early leak detection, and the distribution of decoy files. MediaSentry also monitored auction sites such as

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...

for unauthorized distribution of software and other property.

History

On 1 February 2001 MediaSentry was founded by Aaron Fessler in Morristown, New Jersey. On 13 June 2005 MediaSentry was acquired by

SafeNet SafeNet, Inc. was an information security company based in Belcamp, Maryland, United States, which was acquired in August 2014 by the French security company Gemalto. Gemalto was, in turn, acquired by Thales Group in 2019. The former SafeNet's ...

. SafeNet sold the MediaSentry division to

Artistdirect ARTISTdirect is an American online digital media entertainment company. Overview Founded in 1994, it owns several websites, including artistdirect.com and artistdirectinterviews.com. These websites are a group of affiliate websites offering mul ...

in April 2009. In late 2007 the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

, represented by

Oregon Attorney General The Oregon Attorney General is a statutory office within the executive branch of the state of Oregon, and serves as the chief legal officer of the state, heading its Department of Justice with its six operating divisions. The attorney general is ch ...

Hardy Myers Hardy Myers (October 25, 1939 – November 29, 2016) was an American lawyer and Democratic politician who served three terms as the 15th attorney general of the state of Oregon, United States. Prior to taking office in 1997, he served from 1975 ...

, refused to provide information on its students to the

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

, questioning the tactics used by MediaSentry in one of its investigations. The next year

Central Michigan University Central Michigan University (CMU) is a public research university in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Established in 1892 as the Central Michigan Normal School and Business Institute, the private normal school became a state institution and renamed Cen ...

accused MediaSentry of violating its students' privacy after the company ignored a ruling that it was illegally operating without a private investigator's license. In January 2009 the RIAA canceled their usage of MediaSentry for undisclosed reasons. In August 2009,

ARTISTdirect ARTISTdirect is an American online digital media entertainment company. Overview Founded in 1994, it owns several websites, including artistdirect.com and artistdirectinterviews.com. These websites are a group of affiliate websites offering mul ...

restructured

MediaDefender MediaDefender, Inc. (now Peer Media Technologies) was a company that fought copyright infringement that offered services designed to prevent alleged copyright infringement using peer-to-peer distribution. They used unusual tactics such as flooding ...

and MediaSentry, creating

Peer Media Technologies Peer Media Technologies, Inc. is an Artistdirect subsidiary created in 2009 as a merger of MediaDefender and MediaSentry, after the reputations of the predecessor companies were sullied by the exposure of internal emails and the use of investigati ...

References

External links

MediaSentry homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mediasentry Copyright enforcement companies

History

See also

References

External links