Trident Media Guard (TMG) is a French company that specializes in software to prevent unauthorized copying of files over the Internet. Founded in 2002 by

Alain Guislain Alain may refer to: People * Alain (given name), common given name, including list of persons and fictional characters with the name * Alain (surname) * "Alain", a pseudonym for cartoonist Daniel Brustlein * Alain, a standard author abbreviation u ...

and

Bastien Casalta Bastien is a name of French origin. It is a variant of Sebastian. The name may refer to: People Given name * Bastien Auzeil (born 1989), French decathlon athlete * Bastien Bernard (born 1976), French football midfielder * Bastien Bouillon, Fre ...

, it is located in

Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire (, literally ''Saint-Sébastien on Loire''; br, Sant-Sebastian-an-Enk) is a Communes of France, commune in the Loire-Atlantique Departments of France, department in western France. It is the third-largest suburb of the ...

near

Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...

. It aims to "provide services to major publishing companies of the recording and film industry to stop the loss of revenue due to illegal downloads on peer-to-peer networks." When it was created, it benefited from the incubator functions of Atlanpole, and a significant subscription from the Rennes venture capitalist Ouest Venture. Thierry Lhermitte entered the capital in June 2009 and is a director. It was selected in late January 2010, by the music and film industry to address copyright infringements on the Internet as part of the

HADOPI law The French HADOPI law or Creation and Internet law (french: Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Œuvres et la Protection des droits d'auteur sur Internet, ; or, loosely in English, "Supreme Authority for the Distribution of Works and Protection o ...

. In this context, it will aim to identify the IP addresses of users making illegal downloading, and then send that information to

HADOPI The French HADOPI law or Creation and Internet law (french: Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Œuvres et la Protection des droits d'auteur sur Internet, ; or, loosely in English, "Supreme Authority for the Distribution of Works and Protection o ...

. Also, it also works with other companies (Canal Plus, LFP, France Télévisions), in order to fight against the streaming retransmission of illegal streams during various sporting events. Trident Media Guard and

Thierry Lhermitte Thierry Lhermitte (; born 24 November 1952) is a French actor, director, writer and producer, best known for his comedic roles. He was a founder of the comedy troupe ''Le Splendid'' in the 1970s, along with, among others, Christian Clavier, Gérar ...

jointly received the Special Mention prize Orwell Internet at

Big Brother Awards The Big Brother Awards (BBAs) recognize "the government and private sector organizations ... which have done the most to threaten personal privacy". They are named after the George Orwell character Big Brother from the novel ''Nineteen Eigh ...

2010. On May 13, 2011, Bluetouff, on the Reflets.info site, revealed the existence of an unprotected company server that leaked personal data as well as scripts for processing this data. This incident earned him a triple audit (CNIL, HADOPI and HSC, mandated by the rights holders) and a cut in the interconnection used to communicate the IP addresses of downloaders to HADOPI. The conclusions of these audits will never be made public, only those of Bluetouff will be after it has presented its conclusions to the HADOPI rights protection commission.

See also

References