Summary of USPTO Anti-Piracy Symposium
On January 23, 2025, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) hosted an Anti-Piracy Symposium at its headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. The symposium highlighted piracy issues and trends affecting U.S. rights holders in a variety of creative sectors through briefings on recent copyright case law, the latest tools and techniques for enforcing against commercial copyright piracy, and international copyright piracy updates. Overall, the event continued the important conversation on piracy of American intellectual property (IP) rights and illustrated that the United States needs to take steps to provide better tools to combat pirate websites, including by enacting law that would streamline rights holders’ ability to quickly and effectively prevent foreign-based pirate websites from infiltrating the United States.
Session 1: Notable Copyright Cases and Legal Trends
The first session covered notable copyright piracy trends and useful tips and takeaways from court cases. Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia discussed some standout copyright civil cases with tips and takeaways for practitioners. Judge Brinkema mentioned the cases Griner v. King for Congress (8th Cir., 2024), Sony Music Entertainment v. Cox Communications, Inc. (4th Cir., 2024), and Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy (U.S., 2024). In talking about the Griner case in particular, the judge cautioned parties considering litigation over a fair use dispute, saying that a fair use defense is like “rolling the dice” because a fair use analysis is so fact-dependent and involves expensive discovery proceedings.
Judge Brinkema also briefly mentioned Thaler v. Perlmutter (D.D.C. 2023), a case where the U.S. Copyright Office had refused a registration application for an image that was wholly generated by an AI model. The judge expressed the urgent need for clarity and guidance on generative AI (GAI) authorship so that courts can effectively adjudicate GAI claims related to intellectual property rights. In Authors Guild v. OpenAI (S.D.N.Y., 2024), an on-going case involving the unlicensed use of copyrighted works to train ChatGPT, the judge noted that the case was delayed due to intervening parties and advised practitioners on several ways to avoid causing a delay when intervening in a case.
During the question and answer period, Copyright Alliance CEO Keith Kupferschmid asked Judge Brinkema whether federal district court judges knew they could transfer small claims copyright cases to the Copyright Claims Board (CCB) where the damages arising from the claims would amount to less than $30,000. Judge Brinkema responded that she was not aware of the CCB, but that it sounded like an interesting avenue as she herself usually recommends that parties settle if a claim is less than six figures because of the high cost of litigation.
The focus of the panel then turned to case studies of criminal copyright prosecutions. Vasantha Rao, a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section (DOJ CCIPS), highlighted various criminal copyright prosecutions and enforcement efforts which fell into three categories: (1) traditional criminal copyright prosecution and enforcement; (2) enforcement under the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act of 2020 (PLSA); and (3) criminal copyright enforcement utilizing public and private partnerships.
Under the first category, Ms. Rao highlighted the DOJ’s efforts in counteracting streaming fraud in the case, U.S. v. Smith, where a North Carolina resident allegedly used AI bots to generate audio files which were then uploaded for streaming on digital platforms. While the case was copyright-adjacent, Ms. Rao highlighted that with the rise of generative AI the DOJ has been finding interesting angles of prosecuting criminal acts that affect U.S. rights holders.
Ms. Rao also highlighted the DOJ’s enforcement efforts under the PLSA as being helpful in holding illicit streamers accountable, especially those that provide pirated streaming services of sports events. Pirated sports streaming continues to be a prevalent enforcement problem for sports and live events broadcasters. Ms. Rao highlighted that under U.S. v. Streit, an individual was sentenced for intruding into professional sports leagues’ computer systems and illegally streaming copyrighted sports content based on charges of computer intrusion, wire fraud, and criminal copyright infringement.
Finally, Ms. Rao highlighted the benefits of partnerships with locally based government and private partners by discussing the DOJ’s Operation Offsides enforcement effort, which disrupted websites that were offering unauthorized streaming of the 2022 World Cup games. Ms. Rao stated that DOJ’s coordination and partnership with Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), U.S. attorneys, and international police partners in São Paulo, Brazil and Bucharest, Romania resulted in a successful operation that resulted in expedient shutdowns of illegal streams of the World Cup games.
Session 2: Trends in Privacy and Piracy Prevention
In the second session, Marissa Bostick, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Litigation at the Motion Picture Association (MPA), Andy Chatterley, CEO and Co-Founder of MUSO, Steven Hawley, Founder of Piracy Monitor, and Lui Simpson, Executive Vice President of Global Policy at the Association of American Publishers (AAP) discussed emerging challenges in antipiracy efforts and shared recommendations for how rights holders can protect themselves from piracy.
The panelists discussed how they’ve seen trends from their organization’s enforcement efforts where operators of pirate websites are now paying social media influencers to market their paid piracy services and products to mislead consumers into believing that these services and products were legally licensed. The panelists also shared how they’ve been seeing a trend of piracy hubs popping up in various parts of Asia, such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand. Ms. Simpson from AAP shared that her publisher members have been noticing a trend in regions with inadequate enforcement of copyright laws, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, where the unauthorized distribution of eBooks has become widespread.
Panelists shared that the U.S. still has a long way to go in strengthening our laws to enable rights holders to efficiently and effectively enforce their copyrights and tackle these evolving piracy trends. Panelists discussed the need to implement various anti-piracy measures and frameworks including the need to adopt and/or implement site-blocking legislation, watermarking content, and supporting “notice & stay down” legislation that would require Online Service Providers (OSPs) to block infringing copies of copyright protected works from being re-uploaded.
Keynote Speaker
The keynote speech was delivered by Linda Raschke, bestselling author and financier, who spoke about her personal experience protecting copyrighted content and the challenges for creators in enforcing their copyright. After several instances of finding her books such as Street Smarts—High Probability Short Term Trading Strategies and Trading Sardines: Lessons in the Market From a Lifelong Trader on various websites spanning America, India, and Russia, she confessed that the widespread piracy just didn’t seem to make it worth her while to create new financial literacy videos and books. She called for broader awareness of the difficulties individuals and small publishing companies face when taking down pirated content without hiring multiple, expensive attorneys. She shared that without stricter, more effective deterrence policies, it feels like “perpetual whack-a-mole.”
When asked about the challenges of taking down pirated content internationally, Ms. Raschke noted that a major issue is the lack of legal responsibility for domain owners who post infringing copyrighted content and gain profits from subscription fees to access those illegal copies. She suggested that OSPs either police infringing content being uploaded via their services or be held accountable as they should not be able to shift accountability to the user every time infringing content is posted using the online service. She commended content protection and enforcement services like Muso who provide cost effective automated monitoring for independent creators and publishers. In her experience of filing weekly take down notices, Ms. Raschke noted that having reliable automatic content detection was key in digital rights management.
Session 3: Strategies for Success in Targeting Pirates
The afternoon sessions focused on insights from legal practitioners actively working to take down pirating websites and the nuances between criminal and civil copyright infringement cases.
Michael Christin, trial attorney at DOJ Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS), began the session with anecdotes from a recent case involving one of the largest unauthorized streaming services in the United States. Jetflicks, an illegal online subscription service from 2007 through 2017, was referred to the DOJ by the Motion Picture Association for criminal copyright infringement after Jetflicks ignored several cease-and-desist letters for thousands of pirated television episodes. Through investigative techniques such as grand jury subpoenas, search warrants, and special agent interviews, Mr. Christin shared that the DOJ secured a criminal conviction in June 2024 where the last of eight men was convicted for his involvement in Jetflicks operations. The eight individuals were convicted on a combination of counts of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, money laundering by concealment, and misdemeanor criminal copyright infringement.
When asked about what factors led to success in the Jetflicks case, Mr. Christin highlighted the importance of public and private partnerships. Namely, he focused on how the rights holders of the copyrighted works that were being pirated were integral in exemplifying how piracy is not a victimless crime. Rights holders such as writers and set designers testified how piracy affected their ability to recoup investment costs, which in turn negatively affected their ability to invest in future shows and foreclosed potential job opportunities. Additionally, he noted that payment processors like PayPal were pivotal in proving willful copyright infringement when it sent Jetflicks notices of potential violation of terms and conditions given suspicious financial activity. This forced Jetflicks to move to another financial intermediary, Stripe, where the DOJ was able to prove violation of a known legal duty.
In contrast, Sean Sullivan, Partner at Davis Wright and Tremaine LLP, discussed how civil copyright infringement cases do not have as many effective tools to pursue investigation of copyright infringement. He pointed out that the onus remains on actual content owners to have robust investigative teams doing the same due diligence before filing a complaint. However, Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Christin both agreed that it is imperative for copyright owners to first initiate civil actions such as issuing cease and desist notices because it helps target pirates more effectively. Mr. Sullivan further explained that from a civil perspective, there is greater appeal in going after pirates who are overtly and blatantly flaunting their pirated content for much cheaper.
Session 4: International Antipiracy Developments
The last panel covered new trends on the piracy front, who is making money in piracy schemes and how, and who is best positioned to stop piracy when it involves several intermediaries. Furthermore, it was discussed how the U.S. government can collaborate with foreign governments to improve copyright enforcement.
Kendra Ervin, Vice President of Global Litigation and Enforcement at IP House, discussed the emerging trend of pirates moving away from standalone websites to utilizing intermediary platforms like social media to proliferate their illegal services and products. Ms. Ervin noted that this has increased the need for real-time monitoring and dynamic site blocking – a matter directly implicated in Operation 404. Operation 404 is a cross-industry initiative by Brazilian government to combat the vast amount of piracy in Latin America. In its seventh iteration, Operation 404 successfully blocked and suspended several illegal streaming applications and removed audio/video content from profiles and pages on social networks. For additional information on international piracy and site-blocking measures, she referenced the newest report from Digital Citizens Alliance.
Marissa Bostick, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Litigation at MPA, provided her insights from the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), a leading global online anti-piracy coalition in collaboration with MPA. She shared that piracy is a kind of online service that evolves, and thus requires coordinated action via intermediaries like internet service providers. Ms. Bostick stated that there are three main components to effective copyright enforcement in the intermediary space: 1) disrupting pirating services, including taking pirates off platform and removing brand name advertisements; 2) fostering the importance of collaboration with intermediaries like advertisers, domain registrars, and payment processors; and 3) gathering intelligence with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests or Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices. Ms. Bostick shared how ACE works with several international local law enforcement entities, which has proved successful in stopping infringement as soon as possible. However, she noted that some pirate websites are so pervasive that there is real danger to customers through malware and identity theft.
The last speaker of the day, Peter Mehravari, Director of Policy and Legal Affairs at the International Intellectual Property Alliance, emphasized that cultivating political goodwill with foreign counterparts is an important piece in drafting innovative anti-piracy legislation. He urged policymakers to be sensitive to the policy priorities of their foreign counterparts so that the intellectual property (IP) frameworks in these countries can be improved for enhanced enforcement and antipiracy efforts, especially through the “Watchlist” and “Priority Watch List’ published in the Special 301 Report by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. For example, he spoke about how Kuwait had been on the Watchlist since 1996, but that it successfully got off that list in 2020 because their work in improving their IP system was recognized by the U.S. government. He mentioned Mexico as another country to watch and illustrated that Mexico could be persuaded to increase anti-piracy efforts when data is presented about the positive impact of creators on their national GDP.
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