Federation Against Copyright Theft

The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) is a British organisation established in 1983 to protect and represent the interests of its members' intellectual property (IP). FACT also investigates fraud and cybercrime, and provides global due diligence services to support citizenship investment and trade, business, financial and legal compliance.

FACT investigates and takes action against illegal content providers, and provides information about the risks of engaging with piracy and illegal content. FACT's partnership with Crimestoppers UK allows for the reporting of crime and illegal activity anonymously.

Members

FACT protects the intellectual property rights of global organisations including Premier League, TNT Sports, Virgin Media and Sky.

Court cases

Surfthechannel.com

Anti-piracy warnings

FACT has produced several adverts which have appeared at the beginning of videos and DVDs released in the UK, as well as trailers shown before films in cinemas.

1980s

Shortly after the founding of the company, FACT (along with sponsorship from Fuji Video Cassettes and Rank Film Laboratories) made a PIF discussing about video piracy and the causes of it. The PIF itself would show pictures of pirated tapes, posters for films released at the time including, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Octopussy, Return of the Jedi and Gandhi, as well as pictures of filmmaking and a cinema disappearing through a transition effect to symbolise the death of the film industry. It then discusses the consequences of video piracy publicly released by parliament; two years in prison and unlimited fines, along with a picture of a bargain of legal video tapes disappearing through another transition effect. The PIF ends with the same FACT logo shown at the beginning along with a phone number used at the time.[16] This PIF would be shown in cinemas at the time as well as appearing at the end of various Palace Video rental releases.

1990s

During the 1990s and early 2000s, FACT created a 30-second to one-minute anti-piracy warning called "Beware of Illegal Video Cassettes",[17] reminding customers to check whether or not they have a genuine VHS cassette, and how to report pirated copies; warning that poor quality illegal cassettes could detract from their viewing experience, jeopardise the production of future films, and even damage their VHS recorder. They would appear on many different video cassettes by various home video distributors (mostly major film studios). Versions for each film studio depicting their respective security label (generally either a hologram of the film studio logo, or, in Disney's case, a film logo) were created, with several iterations for each as the FACT hotline number changed multiple times throughout the decade with the message "Video Piracy Is a Crime, Do Not Accept It". The warning was placed at the beginning of most rental VHS tapes in the UK (as well as many retail tapes), similar to the FBI Warning found on tapes in the United States. CIC Video and The Walt Disney Company had a similar term, with the hologram carrying copies of CIC's logo in the case of the former, and the hologram carrying an image of Mickey Mouse from the Walt Disney Home Video logo in the case of the latter.

From late 1996, this warning would sometimes be followed by a public information film featuring a man attempting to return a pirate video purchased from a street market after discovering that the sound was garbled and the picture unwatchable, ending with the tagline "Pirate Videos: Daylight Robbery”. This advert was used until 2002. A precursor PIF, "Video Piracy: It's Not Worth It!"[18] was released in 1995 and featured a young girl named Rebecca trying to watch a pirated VHS tape, ending with a VCR falling down with the words on top: "VIDEO PIRACY. It's not worth it”.

2000s

In 2002, FACT released a PIF called "The Pirates are Out to Get You".[19][20][21][22][23][24] It featured a man destroying VHSs and CDs, amongst other items, with an X-shaped branding iron, ending with both the FACT logo and the UK & Ireland (or in the case of Universal Pictures (UK) Ltd, Australia & New Zealand as well) hotlines. The warning would be placed at the beginning (or in the case of Universal Pictures (UK) Ltd, the end) of rental (and most retail) VHS tapes and some DVDs in the UK, similar to the FBI Warning found on tapes in the United States.

With the advent of DVD, FACT borrowed the Motion Picture Association

Federation Against Copyright Theft

Members

Court cases

Surfthechannel.com

freelivefooty

NZBsRus

TheCod3r

Paul Mahoney

Release groups

First sentencing in IPTV boxes case in England

Fake DVD sellers jailed

Evolution Trading

Dreambox

Bovingdon Market

Former police officer jailed

Software developer jailed

Anti-piracy warnings

1980s

1990s

2000s

See also

External links

References