Web Sheriff

Web Sheriff is an anti-piracy company based in the United Kingdom that provides intellectual property, copyright and privacy rights protection services. The company monitors various websites that host links to downloads of music and film. Web Sheriff has been in operation since 2000, with two offices in the UK.

Web Sheriff
Formation19 October 2000 (2000-10-19)[1]
FounderJohn Giacobbi
Registration no.04093131[1]
PurposeIntellectual property rights
HeadquartersPewsey, Wiltshire, UK[1]
Location
Area served
International
ServicesCopyright enforcement, digital rights management, website building, hosting and management, video editing
OwnerWeb Sheriff Limited
Director
John Edouard Giacobbi[1]
Secretary
Robert Arthur Davage
Employees
20
Websitewebsheriff.com

The company was founded by intellectual property lawyer John Giacobbi,[2] who acts as its managing director. Web Sheriff sends legal take-down notice to BitTorrent and other file sharing sites.[3][4] According to the Los Angeles Times, Web Sheriff is a "leading advocate of the soft sell" in the anti-piracy industry.[2]

Description

Web Sheriff performs various copy protection services.[5] These include protection from copyright infringement,[6] libel,[7] cyber-bullying,[8][9] identity theft privacy issues of social media, policing of trading sites[10] and recovery of fraudulently registered domain names.[11] It also furnishes online security for concert tours.[12]

Operating methods

Web Sheriff uses proprietary software and web crawler programs to search the Internet, using human auditing to determine the type of site that is posting its clients' copyrighted material.[13] It relies heavily on phone calls and relationship building[14] and when locating unauthorized links it targets the persons running the sites.[15] The supposed offending party is sent a take-down notice before further action is taken.[14] Some Torrent sites and file sharing sites such as Mediafire and Rapidshare provide access to the company to remove infringing content itself.[16]

The Los Angeles Times described the company's approach as representing "a sharp turn in the recording industry's life-and-death struggle with piracy, one driven largely by performers and their managers rather than the record companies."[2] When it contracts to protect new music releases, the company encourages the artists it represents to give fans several tracks ahead of the release.[17]

History

Web Sheriff was founded in 2000 by former music attorney and industry consultant[4] John Giacobbi.[4][18][19]

In 2005, the company was responsible for the removal of the Ken Bigley execution footage videos posted on a terrorist website after Bigley's beheading.[20] Web Sheriff related that it was approached by The Mail on Sunday after authorities had refused to intervene citing a lack of power. The video was hosted on a website entitled "headlessamericans.com" and the ISP initially refused to take it down by saying it was protected by freedom of speech, but complied finally after 48 hours of argument.[21] In the same year, in work done for The Mail on Sunday, the company spokesman, writing in that newspaper, disclosed that Web Sheriff also closed down the extreme pornographic strangulation sites at the center of the notorious Jane Longhurst murder case.[22][23]

Web Sheriff was hired by Prince in September 2007 to help him "disappear entirely from the internet."[5] 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." Web Sheriff announced it would launch lawsuits against YouTube, eBay and The Pirate Bay on behalf of Prince if they refused compliance in removing links to his unauthorized photos, videos, and music.[3][24][25] Peter Sunde, co-founder of The Pirate Bay, dismissed the threats, stating that American law was not applicable in Sweden.[26] YouTube complied by removing over 2,000 videos from their site and eBay removed more than 300 auctions.[27][28][29] In November 2007, three fans sites were given notice to remove all images of the singer, his lyrics and "anything linked to Prince's likeness".[30] Some of the Prince fans fought back, formed their own organization called "Prince Fans United" and hired an attorney.[5][31][32] Multiple unauthorized overseas online sites selling merchandise featuring Prince were shut down.[33]

In 2008 the company was hired by Bryan Adams to take down fan sites and tribute bands as well as the owner of the domain name pointlookout.com that had nothing to do with the artist.[34][35][36][37][38]

The company was hired by Axl Rose to remove an unflattering picture by claiming the copyright belonged to Axl Rose and not the photographer.[39][40][41]

Reception

Music fans and bloggers often initially respond angrily when first approached by Web Sheriff on its clients' official and unofficial forums. According to the Evening Standard, "Music blogging sites are littered with comments with the Sheriff's contact details at the top, thanking bloggers for obeying the rules." Fans sometimes interpret this as Web Sheriff saying, "I've got my eye on you."[6] The company reports that eventually most of the fans tend to respect the wishes of their favored artists by cooperating.[14] 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.[42][43]

Web Sheriff's method of using a "velvet glove approach" to appeal to fans has been said by Randy Lewis with the Los Angeles Times to have notable successes, including Lady Gaga's Born This Way and Adele's 21.[2] This journalist also notes that despite these examples of success of the "diplomatic strategy", the company's gentle approach still has skeptics, with some critics calling it naive: Brad Buckles, an executive in copyright enforcement with RIAA, was quoted as saying: "It's certainly well-intended and may work in some cases. The problem is in many, many cases, you're dealing with people who have no respect whatsoever for the intellectual property of record labels or the artists themselves."[2] A Billboard journalist concludes that to appeal to sites that post links to unauthorized music and engaging with fans and redirecting them to authorized content by the artist is a "strategy with a future, if implemented properly."[3]

See also

References
  1. "WEB SHERIFF LIMITED". Companies House UK. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  2. Lewis, Randy (9 June 2011). "Piracy watchdog's mild bite". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  3. "New Sheriff in Town" (PDF). Billboard Upfront. 1 July 2011. Retrieved 22 August 2011.
  4. Daniels, Andrew (12 April 2011). "The Most Hated Man on the Internet". Men's Health. Retrieved 12 April 2011.
  5. Rolling Stone, "Battle Over Online Piracy Gets a Sheriff", Andy Greene, RS 1077, April 2009
  6. "Off the Record: Web Sheriff is watching you". Evening Standard. 4 March 2009. Retrieved 12 March 2010.
  7. Weiss, Dan (10 December 2008). "Meet the Web Sheriff". The Village Voice. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
  8. "Noel Edmonds confronts Facebook troll". telegraph.co.uk. 1 April 2012. Retrieved 1 April 2012.
  9. Reeves, Philip (15 April 2012). "British Attempt to Squash Online Bullying". London: NPR. Retrieved 25 April 2012.
  10. Esquire Magazine, UK edition, "Meet the Web Sheriff", August 2009
  11. "Web Sheriff Goes To The Mats Against Russian Clone". Encore. 4 July 2011. Retrieved 17 July 2011.
  12. Reinartz, Joe (10 March 2011). "Meet the Online Police". Pollstar. Retrieved 10 March 2011.
  13. Cooper, Duncan (25 April 2011). "Respect Yourself: Interview with the Web Sheriff". The Fader. Retrieved 25 April 2011.
  14. Sandoval, Greg (25 September 2007). "Web Sheriff Doing it different than Media Defender". CNET. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
  15. "Facing the Music: There's a New Anti-File-Sharing Sheriff in Town, and He's Getting Results". The Spokesman-Review. 18 February 2008.
  16. Youngs, Ian (16 August 2011). "Stars step up wars on music leaks". BBC. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
  17. Lindvall, Helienne (20 August 2009). "Behind the music: How can artists prevent their work from being leaked?". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 January 2012.
  18. Stevens, Serita. "The Web Sheriff: A New Kind of Enforcement". lasplash.com. Retrieved 3 February 2012.
  19. Gardner, Eriq (1 February 2012). "Hollywood Piracy Watch: Magnolia Pictures Sends the Most Takedown Notices to Twitter". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 1 February 2012.
  20. The Times, "Arctic Monkeys go Bananas Over File Sharing", Adam Sherwin, 31 March 2007
  21. Kaufmann, Andy (August 2011). "Exec Profile: John Giacobbi". musicconnection.com. p. 22. Retrieved 27 December 2011. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was a terrorist warlord, had a website with execution footage of some of their hostages. One of the U.K. newspapers was upset by this and the authorities said, well, there's nothing we can do, we're powerless. The paper came to us and asked if we'd help. The video was bounced through a couple ISP's in Japan. It was harder to locate because of the Japanese encryption, but the midsection for the ISP was American. They were hosting this website, headlessamericans.com. We notified the ISP and informed them that what they were hosting was an incitement to racial hatred, religious hatred and violence. What their customer was doing was illegal and a breach of their own terms and conditions. The ISP initially refused to take it down, saying the website was protected by freedom of speech. We said the White House would be very interested in their version of freedom of speech. After 48 hours of arguing, they relented.
  22. Giacobbi, John (11 September 2005). "How we can clean up the internet". The Mail on Sunday. I closed down two particularly heinous sites over the course of the past year as part of The Mail on Sunday's campaign to highlight the problems we all face with an unregulated internet. In the first case, we managed to shut down the horrific asphyxiation site at the centre of the Jane Longhurst murder trial and in the second we closed a site dedicated to showing the beheading of Western hostages in Iraq.
  23. "Shut the evil websites that are peddling perversion". Yorkshire Post. 9 November 2005. Retrieved 11 January 2012.
  24. "Prince get tough on web pirates". BBC News. 13 September 2007. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
  25. "Prince gets tough online". BBC Radio 6. 13 September 2007. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
  26. Söderling, Fredrik (15 February 2008). "Prince stämmer Pirate Bay". Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). Stockholm, Sweden. Retrieved 17 February 2008.
  27. "Prince to sue YouTube, eBay over unauthorized content". Billboard. Retrieved 12 March 2010.
  28. Kiss, Jemima (13 September 2007). "Prince seeks to 'Reclaim the net'". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 12 March 2010.
  29. Byrne, Ciar (14 September 2007). "Prince sues internet sites for breaching his copyright". The Independent. Retrieved 18 August 2010.
  30. Casiato, Paul (7 November 2007). "Prince moves to sue fan web sites". Reuters. London. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
  31. "Prince sites face legal threats". BBC. 7 July 2007. Retrieved 1 October 2010.
  32. Kreps, Daniel (9 November 2007). "Prince Releases Diss Track As Battle With Fans Gets Funky". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 11 January 2012.
  33. Frehsee, Nicole (14 September 2007). "Prince's Message to Everyone: Stop Bootlegging My Stuff". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 8 January 2012.
  34. Fiveash, Kelly (27 October 2008). "Bryan Adams pulls a Prince on fan sites". The Register.
  35. Sandoval, Greg (27 October 2008). "Bryan Adams follows Prince in challenging fan sites". CNET.
  36. Allemann, Andrew. "Berkens' company sues musician Bryan Adams over bizarre trademark claims". Domain Name Wire. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
  37. "Worldwide Media, Inc.vs Bryan Adams and Adams Communications Inc" (PDF).
  38. "Exhibit A" (PDF).
  39. "Appetite for destruction: Axl Rose demands Google remove 'fat' photos". The Guardian.
  40. "Axl Rose Wants His "Fat" Photos Removed From the Internet". Yahoo. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  41. "Axl Rose demands Google take down "Fat Axl Rose" photo". CBS News. 8 June 2016.
  42. Lindvall, Helienne (12 October 2009). "Web Sheriff is Watching You". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 12 March 2010.
  43. Lau, Kathleen. "Web Sheriff fights music piracy". itworldcanada.com. Retrieved 28 August 2011.
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