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In January 2011, the company protected [[Adele (singer)|Adele]]'s album, ''[[21 (Adele album)|21]]'' with ninety-nine percent of the leaks removed prior to the album's release according to Web Sheriff.<ref name="latimes"/><ref name="MensHealth"/> In May 2011, when ''[[Born This Way]]'', by [[Lady Gaga]], leaked a week before release, fans were offered official material such as tracks and videos in return for not posting copies of it on sites. Web Sheriff reported that when a mailbox was set up for reporting leaks, tens of thousands of fans responded and sent in links to copies due to the fans' loyalty and bond to the artist.<ref name="BBCstars"/> Randy Lewis with ''[[The Los Angeles Times]]'' wrote that "The notable successes for the velvet glove approach include "Born This Way", which crashed through the million-sales barrier in its first week, Adele's "21", the No. 1 record in the country for nine weeks..."<ref name="latimes"/>
In January 2011, the company protected [[Adele (singer)|Adele]]'s album, ''[[21 (Adele album)|21]]'' with ninety-nine percent of the leaks removed prior to the album's release according to Web Sheriff.<ref name="latimes"/><ref name="MensHealth"/> In May 2011, when ''[[Born This Way]]'', by [[Lady Gaga]], leaked a week before release, fans were offered official material such as tracks and videos in return for not posting copies of it on sites. Web Sheriff reported that when a mailbox was set up for reporting leaks, tens of thousands of fans responded and sent in links to copies due to the fans' loyalty and bond to the artist.<ref name="BBCstars"/> Randy Lewis with ''[[The Los Angeles Times]]'' wrote that "The notable successes for the velvet glove approach include "Born This Way", which crashed through the million-sales barrier in its first week, Adele's "21", the No. 1 record in the country for nine weeks..."<ref name="latimes"/>

In July 2011, Web Sheriff announced that it was taking legal action against a Russian website that has copied the Web Sheriff trademark and also purports to offer the same services as the anti-piracy company. American and Russian litigators were retained for the "intercontinental legal attack" against the Russian site.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ewdn.com/2011/07/14/web-sheriff-vs-web-sheriff-digital-cold-war-declared-between-british-and-russian-anti-piracy-companies/|title=Web Sheriff vs. Web Sheriff: "Digital Cold War" declared between British and Russian anti-piracy companies|publisher=East-West Digital News|date=14-July-2011|accessdate=26-October 2011}}</ref>


After locating ISP where [[Ken Bigley]] execution videos were hosted, Web Sheriff requested the ISP take down the video. In response to the ISP free speach claims, Web Sheriff suggested that the White House might be notified, whereupon the videos were taken down.<ref name="mcaug2011">{{cite web|url=http://www.musicconnection.com/digital/|title=Exec Profile: John Giacobbi|publisher=musicconnection.com|last=Kaufmann|first=Andy|date=August 2011, Page 22|accessdate=27 December 2011}}</ref> It has also closed down terrorist related sites and monitored trading sites, <ref name="Esquire Magazine">''[[Esquire Magazine]]'', UK edition, "Meet the Web Sheriff", August 2009</ref> as well as the billing pages of a [[necrophilia]] website related to the murder of [[Graham Coutts|Jane Longhurst]].<ref name="bbc Longhurst">{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/3504926.stm|publisher=[[BBC]]|title=BBC: Two years to close porn site|date=2004-03-12|accessdate=2010-03-12}}</ref><ref name="mailonsunday2005">{{cite news|last=Giacobbi|first=John|title =How we can clean up the internet|work =[[The Mail on Sunday]]|date =2005-09-11}}</ref>
After locating ISP where [[Ken Bigley]] execution videos were hosted, Web Sheriff requested the ISP take down the video. In response to the ISP free speach claims, Web Sheriff suggested that the White House might be notified, whereupon the videos were taken down.<ref name="mcaug2011">{{cite web|url=http://www.musicconnection.com/digital/|title=Exec Profile: John Giacobbi|publisher=musicconnection.com|last=Kaufmann|first=Andy|date=August 2011, Page 22|accessdate=27 December 2011}}</ref> It has also closed down terrorist related sites and monitored trading sites, <ref name="Esquire Magazine">''[[Esquire Magazine]]'', UK edition, "Meet the Web Sheriff", August 2009</ref> as well as the billing pages of a [[necrophilia]] website related to the murder of [[Graham Coutts|Jane Longhurst]].<ref name="bbc Longhurst">{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/3504926.stm|publisher=[[BBC]]|title=BBC: Two years to close porn site|date=2004-03-12|accessdate=2010-03-12}}</ref><ref name="mailonsunday2005">{{cite news|last=Giacobbi|first=John|title =How we can clean up the internet|work =[[The Mail on Sunday]]|date =2005-09-11}}</ref>

Revision as of 23:53, 4 January 2012

Web Sheriff
IndustryIntellectual property rights
Founded2000
FounderJohn Giacobbi
Headquarters
London
,
United Kingdom
Area served
International
Key people
John Giacobbi
ServicesCopyright enforcement, digital rights management, website building, hosting and management, video editing
OwnerWeb Sheriff Corporation
Number of employees
20
Websitewebsheriff.com

Web Sheriff is an anti-piracy company based in the United Kingdom that provides intellectual property, copyright and privacy rights protection services for a range of clients that include record labels, musical artists, film studios, news media organizations, and celebrities. The company monitors various websites that host links to unauthorized downloads of copyrighted music and film. Web Sheriff has been in operation since 2000, with two offices in the UK.

The company was founded by attorney John Giacobbi, who acts as its managing director. While Web Sheriff will send an immediate "take-down" notice to BitTorrent and other file sharing sites or threaten lawsuits on behalf of its clients, the company reports that over half of its activities involve sending an initial polite request to blogs and fansites for copyrighted music to be removed, engaging with fans and offering free official promotional tracks and clips from the artist as replacement for the leaked material.[1][2] According to the Los Angeles Times, Web Sheriff is a "leading advocate of the soft sell" in the anti-piracy industry.[3]

Description

Web Sheriff performs online rights management services including copyright infringement, libel, identity theft, privacy issues of social media, protection from cyber-bullying and recovery of fraudulently registered domain names.[4][5][6][7][8] The company provides design and website and YouTube build including maintenance services as well as online security for the live broadcasts of concerts.[9][10] It provides video editing services and manufactures watermarked CDs and DVDs and provides individually watermarked digital streams of audio and video for journalists.[9][5]

The most predominate work it performs is copyright protection services for record labels, music artists and film companies when releasing new material.[7] Major corporate record labels, independent record labels and American film production companies use the company's services.[16] It monitors blogs, BitTorrent trackers, file-sharing sites, YouTube, eBay, film-sharing sites and websites that host links to unauthorized downloads of copyrighted music and film.[17][18]

Operating methods

Web Sheriff uses proprietary software and web-crawler programmers to search the Internet, using human auditing to determine the type of site that is posting its clients' copyrighted material. The company gives the importance of this determination as, by example, "to differentiate between a band's biggest fan's blog and a Russian pirate site."[7][19] It relies heavily on phone calls and relationship building instead of only on technology.[17] When locating the links, it does not illegally interfere or add bogus files but targets the persons running the sites.[20] When it detects pirated content on BitTorrent and other file-sharing sites, the offending party is given an initial warning before further action is taken.[7][21] Web Sheriff has noted that some Torrent sites and file sharing sites such as Mediafire and Rapidshare provide access and allow them to remove infringing content.[22][23]

When approaching fans on blogs, a polite request is made for the copyrighted material to be removed, while providing the fans with free official tracks and clips from the artist and record label. The company's methods make use of each fan encounter to "turn a negative into a positive by using viral marketing and actively engaging with and including fans and bloggers in their marketing and promotion."[15][21][24][25][26] According to the company, it then tries to build a relationship with the fans and promote the artist further by sharing links to their Facebook, YouTube, Myspace page and to the artist's official website.[1]

History

Web Sheriff was founded in 2000 by attorney John Giacobbi, who acts as company spokesman and managing director.[5] Prior to forming Web Sheriff, Giacobbi had been an independent consultant to record labels and artists including Village People. Giacobbi told an interviewer that the formation of the company evolved from his desire to help Village People retain their rights on the internet, as copyright infringements and the selling of bootleg CDs by "fake bands, fake sites or fake names" had become a major problem for the band at that time.[5]

The company first came to note when it was hired by Prince in 2007 to "disappear entirely from the internet."[4] The star's spokesman related that "Prince believes strongly that as an artist the music rights must remain with the artist and thus copyrights should be protected across the board." "Very few artists have ever taken this kind of action over their rights."[27] In September 2007, Web Sheriff announced it would launch lawsuits against YouTube, eBay and The Pirate Bay on behalf of Prince if they refused compliance.[1][27][28][29] Peter Sunde, co-founder of The Pirate Bay, dismissed the threats, stating that American law was not applicable in Sweden.[30] YouTube complied by removing over 2,000 videos from their site and eBay removed more than 300 auctions.[31][32][33]

Nick Bracegirdle with Chicane hired Web Sheriff in 2007 to prevent leaks from his album Somersault after selling his Ferrari and mortgaging his home to finance it. (Chicane's 2003 album, Easy to Assemble was so widely pirated by a Russian counterfeiter alone, selling thousands of copies with a sleeve from a previous album with the title digitally removed, that it was never officially released.)[18][34]

In 2007, when Bloc Party's album A Weekend in the City leaked three months previous to release, their record label, V2 Records hired Web Sheriff to stop the leakage as the album was intended to make the band popular on an international basis.[14][35] Web Sheriff at first appealed to fan sites to not post links to the album out of respect for the band. When this approach did not work, widespread uploaders were tracked down and sent letters that referred to possible prosecution. Said to face a possible one million illegal MP3 files downloaded, according to V2, the leakage was reduced to an insignificant amount.[14]

In 2008, Van Morrison hired the company to contact fan sites and demand that photos, lyrics and other copyrighted material be removed immediately.[36] His manager stated that posting the photos were an invasion of Morrison's privacy. The two most popular sites closed down soon after they were notified. Through the wishes of the artist all related videos on YouTube and elsewhere promptly disappeared from the Internet.[4]

Bryan Adams employed the company in 2008 to remove thousands of low quality bootleg video clips from YouTube and replace them with official videos on his own channel. Web Sheriff reported that the new channel was a success and had 187 million views one and one-half years later.[10]

When Qtrax introduced their new file-sharing site In January 2008, Web Sheriff notified the site on behalf of Prince, Van Morrison and The Black Crowes that regardless of whether the music companies supported the service, individual artists would have to give their approval.[37][38]

When "Brother Sport", the first song from Animal Collective's album Merriweather Post Pavilion leaked in November 2008, Web Sheriff posted to Grizzly Bear's blog that they were the "global-leak-source of the track" and asked for an apology to be posted on the blog for a week to Domino Records, Animal Collective and Web Sheriff.[9][13] Grizzly Bear band member Ed Droste complied and apologized stating "The Web Sheriff is just doing his job, and we're all aware of the damage internet file sharing is doing to album sales."[24] The album leaked a month early and while Web Sheriff said it was "virtually impossible to completely put an album back in the box after a leak", the company was able to remove 90% or 10,000 of the links.[4]

RLSLOG, called one of the world's most popular release news sites, was taken offline in January 2009 through efforts by Web Sheriff. The site was shut down by complaints by Web Sheriff to its web site host and bandwidth provider.[39][40]

Bob Dylan used the company's services pro bono to protect his charity Christmas album, Christmas in the Heart following its leak in October 2009. Web Sheriff also removed unauthorized videos from the internet, replacing them with official ones on Dylan's YouTube channel.[5][41][42]

In January 2011, the company protected Adele's album, 21 with ninety-nine percent of the leaks removed prior to the album's release according to Web Sheriff.[3][2] In May 2011, when Born This Way, by Lady Gaga, leaked a week before release, fans were offered official material such as tracks and videos in return for not posting copies of it on sites. Web Sheriff reported that when a mailbox was set up for reporting leaks, tens of thousands of fans responded and sent in links to copies due to the fans' loyalty and bond to the artist.[22] Randy Lewis with The Los Angeles Times wrote that "The notable successes for the velvet glove approach include "Born This Way", which crashed through the million-sales barrier in its first week, Adele's "21", the No. 1 record in the country for nine weeks..."[3]

After locating ISP where Ken Bigley execution videos were hosted, Web Sheriff requested the ISP take down the video. In response to the ISP free speach claims, Web Sheriff suggested that the White House might be notified, whereupon the videos were taken down.[43] It has also closed down terrorist related sites and monitored trading sites, [7] as well as the billing pages of a necrophilia website related to the murder of Jane Longhurst.[44][45]

Reception

Web Sheriff is said to also function as a "fan outreach organization"[5] through its unique, "gentle, gradual approach".[3] Web Sheriff states their intent is to engage with the protected artist's fans where they congregate most and redirect them to artist approved material with the hope that they will leave the leaked content alone.[1]

Music fans and bloggers often initially respond angrily when first requested by Web Sheriff to take down MP3 tracks or to not post them on the music-related site. Web Sheriff's usual approach is an appeal to the fans to respect the wishes of the band with offers of links to approved tracks and samples for the new album. Fans sometimes interpret this as Web Sheriff saying, "I've got my eye on you."[24] The company spokesman says that eventually most of the fans tend to respect the wishes of their favored artists by cooperating.[17] As related by The Guardian, The Prodigy fans on the brainkiller forum engaged with Web Sheriff on a thread that lasted through 18 pages. Some of the fans who had been hostile at the beginning, then asked what they could do to help the band.[21][46]

Andrew Daniels with Men's Health, in an introduction to an interview with him, referred to John Giacobbi, 'alias, the Web Sheriff' as "the most hated man on the internet" and "the scorn of bloggers, pirates, and regular Joes all over the world".[2] IsoHunt's founder Gary Fung has spoken of Web Sheriff as "the white hat of antipiracy companies" while further noting that "Web Sheriff, in my book, are the good guys. What they do is send takedown notices for copyright owners, which is perfectly legitimate."[17]

References

  1. ^ a b c d "New Sheriff in Town" (PDF). Billboard Upfront. 1 July 2011. Retrieved 22 August 2011.
  2. ^ a b c Daniels, Andrew (12 April 2011). "The Most Hated Man on the Internet". Men's Health. Retrieved 12 April 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Randy (9 June 2011). "Piracy watchdog's mild bite". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Rolling Stone, "Battle Over Online Piracy Gets a Sheriff", Andy Greene, RS 1077, April 2009
  5. ^ a b c d e f Goetz, Rick (2010-07-06). "A Kinder, Gentler & More Effective War On Piracy". musiciancoaching.com. Retrieved 2010-10-02-. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help) Cite error: The named reference "JG/MC" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  6. ^ "Web Sheriff Goes To The Mats Against Russian Clone". Encore. 4 July 2011. Retrieved 17 July 2011.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Esquire Magazine, UK edition, "Meet the Web Sheriff", August 2009
  8. ^ "Conversations with Your Self: The Web Sheriff, John Giacobbi". The Voice America. 29 September 2011. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
  9. ^ a b c d e f Weiss, Dan (10 December 2008). "Meet the Web Sheriff". The Village Voice. Retrieved 14 March 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  10. ^ a b Reinartz, Joe (10 March 2011). "Meet the Online Police". Pollstar. Retrieved 10 March 2011.
  11. ^ "The Brown Coach of Leisure". Silent Talkie. 17 January 2010. Retrieved 6 September 2011.
  12. ^ a b Raible, Allan (27 March 2008). "Review: The Raconteurs' "Consolers of the Lonely"". ABC News. Retrieved 6 September 2011.
  13. ^ a b Thompson, Paul (24 November 2008). "Grizzly Bear Apologize to Animal Collective for Leak". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 6 September 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ a b c The Times, "Arctic Monkeys go Bananas Over File Sharing", Adam Sherwin, 31 March 2007 Cite error: The named reference "timesonlineArctic" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  15. ^ a b Smyth, David (11 April 2009). "Caught in the net". The Scotsman. Retrieved 11 April 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  16. ^ Columbia Records,[11] Rough Trade Records[9] Matador Records,[9] Warner Bros. Records,[12] XL Recordings,[12] Domino Records,[13] Rough Trade Records,[9] V2 Records,[4][14] and film distributors such as Magnolia Pictures.[4][7][15]
  17. ^ a b c d Sandoval, Greg (25 September 2007). "Web Sheriff Doing it different than Media Defender". CNET. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
  18. ^ a b Sinclair, David (7 August 2007). "Frontier lawmen". independent.ie. Retrieved 28 August 2011.
  19. ^ Cooper, Duncan (25 April 2011). "Respect Yourself: Interview with the Web Sheriff". The Fader. Retrieved 25 April 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  20. ^ [1]"Facing the Music: There's a New Anti-File-Sharing Sheriff in Town, and He's Getting Results". The Spokesman-Review. 18 February 2008. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  21. ^ a b c Lindvall, Helienne (12 October 2009). "Web Sheriff is Watching You". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 12 March 2010. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  22. ^ a b Youngs, Ian (16 August 2011). "Stars step up wars on music leaks". BBC. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
  23. ^ Emory, Daniel (30 September 2010). "Lawyers to continue piracy fight". BBC. Retrieved 1 October 2010.
  24. ^ a b c "Off the Record: Web Sheriff is watching you". Evening Standard. 4 March 2009. Retrieved 12 March 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  25. ^ "John Giacobbi". The Huffington Post. 30 July 2011. Retrieved 17 August 2011. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  26. ^ Emory, Daniel (30 September 2010). "Lawyers to continue piracy fight". BBC. Retrieved 1 October 2010.
  27. ^ a b "Prince takes on YouTube over clips". London: The Times. 13 September 2007. Retrieved 12 March 2010. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  28. ^ "Prince get tough on web pirates". BBC News. 13 September 2007. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
  29. ^ "Prince gets tough online". BBC Radio 6. 13 September 2007. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
  30. ^ Söderling, Fredrik (15 February 2008). "Prince stämmer Pirate Bay" (in Swedish). Stockholm, Sweden: Dagens Nyheter. Retrieved 17 February 2008.
  31. ^ Kiss, Jemima (13 September 2007). "Prince seeks to 'Reclaim the net'". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 12 March 2010. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  32. ^ "Prince to sue YouTube, eBay over unauthorized content". Billboard. Retrieved 12 March 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  33. ^ Byrne, Ciar (14 September 2007). "Prince sues internet sites for breaching his copyright". The Independent. Retrieved 18 August 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  34. ^ "Chicane Takes Self-Financed Route Back to Stardom". Billboard. Retrieved 28 August 2011.
  35. ^ "V2 and Web Sheriff shield Bloc Party". Music Week. 26 March 2007. Retrieved 24 March 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  36. ^ Q, "Van Morrison fights internet", May 2009
  37. ^ Sowa, Tom (29 January 2008). "Not even out the door and already the Web Sheriff is after Qtrax". The Spokesman-Review. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  38. ^ Sandoval, Greg (29 January 2008). "After label, Qtrax must satisfy Prince, Van Morrison". cNET.com. Retrieved 31 March 2010.
  39. ^ "Web Sheriff Takes Down RLSLOG". TorrentFreak. 19 January 2009. Retrieved 28 April 2010.
  40. ^ Hefflington, Mark (27 April 2010). "Universal Music complaint gets web leaks news site pulled". DMW. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
  41. ^ Brown, Lane (8 October 2009). "Bob Dylan's Awesome Christmas Album Leaks". nymag. Retrieved 14 March 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  42. ^ "CAFAmerica to distribute royalities [sic] from Bob Dylan's Christmas album to Crisis". UK Fundraising. 14 December 2009. Retrieved 19 December 2009.
  43. ^ Kaufmann, Andy (August 2011, Page 22). "Exec Profile: John Giacobbi". musicconnection.com. Retrieved 27 December 2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  44. ^ "BBC: Two years to close porn site". BBC. 12 March 2004. Retrieved 12 March 2010.
  45. ^ Giacobbi, John (11 September 2005). "How we can clean up the internet". The Mail on Sunday.
  46. ^ Lau, Kathleen. "Web Sheriff fights music piracy". itworldcanada.com. Retrieved 28 August 2011.

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