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== Staffing ==
== Staffing ==
The unit is a 21 strong-team consisting of detectives, police staff investigators, analysts, researchers, an education officer and a communications officer. The team also has the added skills and expertise from two industry secondees, a Senior Intelligence Officer from the IPO and Mark Rampton, a Senior Internet Investigator from the [[BPI]].<ref>{{cite web|title=CONFERENCE PROGRAMME|url=http://www.ip-protectexpo.com/conference-programme.htm|website=http://www.ip-protectexpo.com/conference-programme.htm|accessdate=17 August 2014}}</ref>
The unit is a 21 strong-team consisting of detectives, police staff investigators, analysts, researchers, an education officer and a communications officer. The team also has the added skills and expertise from two industry secondees, a Senior Intelligence Officer from the IPO (Gordon Homes)<ref>{{cite web|title=Gordon Holmes - Senior Intelligence Officer at Intellectual Property Office|url=uk.linkedin.com/pub/gordon-holmes/34/a09/493|website=LinkedIn|accessdate=17 August 2014}}</ref> and a Senior Internet Investigator from the [[BPI]] (Mark Rampton)<ref>{{cite web|title=CONFERENCE PROGRAMME|url=http://www.ip-protectexpo.com/conference-programme.htm|website=http://www.ip-protectexpo.com/conference-programme.htm|accessdate=17 August 2014}}</ref>.


The unit is currently headed up by T/DCI Andy Fyfe.<ref>{{cite web|title=Government & Whitehall Action|url=http://www.allianceforip.co.uk/government.html|website=http://www.allianceforip.co.uk|accessdate=17 August 2014}}</ref>
The unit is currently headed up by T/DCI Andy Fyfe.<ref>{{cite web|title=Government & Whitehall Action|url=http://www.allianceforip.co.uk/government.html|website=http://www.allianceforip.co.uk|accessdate=17 August 2014}}</ref>

Revision as of 15:24, 17 August 2014

The Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) at the City of London Police became operational in September 2013.[1]

The unit was first announced[2] in December 2012 by Vince Cable MP. It will be funded by £2.5m over two years of public money via the Intellectual Property Office.[3] In April 2014 Mike Weatherley, the Prime Minister's Intellectual Property Advisor called on the Prime Minister to commit to the permanent funding of the unit to extend its existence beyond 2015.[4]

Staffing

The unit is a 21 strong-team consisting of detectives, police staff investigators, analysts, researchers, an education officer and a communications officer. The team also has the added skills and expertise from two industry secondees, a Senior Intelligence Officer from the IPO (Gordon Homes)[5] and a Senior Internet Investigator from the BPI (Mark Rampton)[6].

The unit is currently headed up by T/DCI Andy Fyfe.[7]

Operation Creative

Operation Creative is an ongoing campaign against alleged copyright infringing sites and their advertising network.

In October 2013 a request to Canadian registrar EasyDNS demanded they redirect torrentpond.com to an IP address (83.138.166.114) describing the domain as being under criminal investigation, featuring links to:

This request was refused due to having no legal basis.[8][9] EasyDNS suggested that registrars that complied with the PIPCU's requests may have violated ICANN's transfer policies.[10] and filed a request for enforcement with ICANN.[11] Following this request, three domains suspended by Public Domain Registry had their nameservers restored but locked.

Other sites known to be effected include SumoTorrent, MisterTorrent, ExtraTorrent, emp3world.com, full-albums.net and maxalbums.com[12] By December 2013 40 domains were successfully suspended.[13]

In April 2014 the PIPCU's sustained legal pressure caused the closure of popular sports torrent site thesportstorrentnetwork.co.uk.[14]

Advertiser Blocking

Piracy warning replacing adverts
File:Pipcu-project-sunblock.png
Parties involved in project sunblock[15]

The PIPCU maintains an 'Infringing Website List' (IWL), a portal for digital advertisers to be informed of sites containing infringing content with the intention that they cease advertising on them.[16] Sites are identified as infringing by rights holders for the and the list is not made available to the public.[17]

Working with the media and advertiser industry body, the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) created a technology portal called 'Project Sunblock'.[15] This allows the PIPCU to submit infringing sites to be passed along to participating advertising networks for blacklisting. From June 2014 this technology allowed replacing the adverts of websites believed to be offering pirate content with warnings from the PIPCU.[18]

References

  1. ^ New Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit launches with early morning arrests in Birmingham, City of London Police, 2013-09-13
  2. ^ Intellectual property crime unit to be set up by City police, Guardian, 2012-12-17
  3. ^ New unit to tackle online piracy and counterfeit crime, IPO press release, 2013-06-28
  4. ^ "UK Prime Minister Asked for Permanent Police Anti-Piracy Unit Funding". TorrentFreak. 14 April 2014. Retrieved 14 April 2014. {{cite news}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  5. ^ [uk.linkedin.com/pub/gordon-holmes/34/a09/493 "Gordon Holmes - Senior Intelligence Officer at Intellectual Property Office"]. LinkedIn. Retrieved 17 August 2014. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
  6. ^ "CONFERENCE PROGRAMME". http://www.ip-protectexpo.com/conference-programme.htm. Retrieved 17 August 2014. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)
  7. ^ "Government & Whitehall Action". http://www.allianceforip.co.uk. Retrieved 17 August 2014. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)
  8. ^ Whatever Happened to "Due Process" ?, EasyDNS, 2013-10-08
  9. ^ Orlowski, Andrew (11 October 2013). "Canadian operator EasyDNS stands firm against London cops". The Register. Retrieved 21 April 2014.
  10. ^ Jeftovic, Mark. "Registrars that complied with "shakedown" requests may now be in violation of ICANN Transfers Policy". EasyDNS. Retrieved 21 April 2014.
  11. ^ Jeftovic, Mark. "TDRP proceedings initiated in response to UK police shakedown". Retrieved 21 April 2014.
  12. ^ "UK Police Orders Registrars to Suspend Domains of Major Torrent Sites". Torrentfreak. 9 October 2013. Retrieved 21 April 2014. {{cite news}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  13. ^ Solon, Olivia (12 December 2013). "With Operation Creative, police crack down on 'ad-funded' piracy". wired.co.uk. Retrieved 21 April 2014.
  14. ^ "UK Police Force Shutdown of Sports Torrent Network". Torrentfreak. 21 April 2014. Retrieved 21 April 2014. {{cite news}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  15. ^ a b "Online Pirates Are Making Advertisers Walk the Plank". Retrieved 29 July 2014.
  16. ^ City of London Police call on advertising and brand sectors to help tackle cyber crime, PIPCU, 2014-03-31
  17. ^ UK Police Launch Pirate Site Blacklist for Advertisers, TorrentFreak, 2014-03-31
  18. ^ Lee, Dave. "Police placing anti-piracy warning ads on illegal sites". Retrieved 29 July 2014.


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