Rightscorp

Key takeaways

Rightscorp belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Rightscorp to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Rightscorp from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Rightscorp. Inc (formerly DigitalRights) is a Los-Angeles based copyright enforcement company, which locates alleged copyright violators and collects money from legal damages as well as out of court settlements on behalf of the copyright holder(s). Rightscorp manages copyrights of videos, music, and video games.

Services

Clients Rightscorp represents music, movie, and print publishers. In May 2014, Rightscorp reached 1.5 million copyrights being managed, including those held by Warner Bros. The company manages copyrights for over 800 feature films, including 14 movie titles with gross sales of over $3.5 billion. Rightscorp works with music interests such as BMG Rights Management, which represents such musicians as David Bowie, Kings of Leon, and Will.i.am and is a member of the American Association of Independent Music. The company represents more than 13,000 copyrights held by Blue Pie Productions and metal/hardcore label Rotten Records. During the week of 24 February 2013, the company was also monitoring 13 songs on the Billboard Hot 100.

Monitoring Rightcorp utilizes crawlers, which according to Steele and CEO Christopher Sabec, crawls Bittorrent file-sharing sites and finds seeders and their IP addresses over time. Though the company has the seeders’ IP addresses, it requires the ISPs to connect their notices to the seeders. Sabec also says the company can discriminate between actual piracy and unauthorized internet access, but there is no evidence to substantiate this claim. In response to mobile streaming apps such as Meerkat, Periscope, and Popcorn Time, the company has also announced a "Streaming Rights Monitoring" service in May 2015, which the Rightscorp claims will be able to continuously monitor for streaming of copyrighted material on mobile streaming networks.

Notice forwarding After determining the target IP address, Rightscorp requests that the Internet service provider for that address forward a notice of infringement to the user. The subscribers of more than American 70 ISPs have paid settlements to the company, including Charter Communications, CenturyLink, and others. Rightscorp COO Robert Steele told Ars Technica that more ISPs are forwarding their notices each month. According to the company, over 200 ISPs are participating with Rightscorp as of November 2014. However, ISPs do not always choose to comply with the request to forward notices. As of November 2014, music publishers BMG and Round Hill are suing Cox Communications for not terminating the accounts of users identified by Rightscorp as being allegedly repeat downloaders. In May 2015, Rightscorp filed suit against two Comcast users for downloading two albums, including Acid Bath's When the Kite String Pops and D.R.I.'s Definition. The company claims one of the downloaders ignored 11 notices, the other, 288. Rotten Records, through Rightscorp, is demanding an injunction against further infringement, deletion of the files, and a fine of $150,000 per work.

Settlements and disconnections In the notice of infringement, the Rightscorp offers a choice between paying a small settlement fee (around $10 to US$20 per violation) or facing a possible lawsuit for damages of around US$150,000 under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the current law. After collection, Rightscorp's settlements are split 50/50 with its clients. The company compares its settlement option of $20 per alleged infringement to a traffic ticket, calling it a "socially fair way to create a deterrent." Even though the notice works as a settlement offer, the notice is not in itself enforceable by law, and the liability of the infringed offender has to be determined by a civil court. If the user chooses not to pay and is repeatedly alleged of violated copyright infringements, the ISP may suspend or terminate the subscriber account until a settlement is reached. TorrentFreak claimed in 2011 that more than 200,000 BitTorrent users were in some stage of a lawsuit for alleged copyright infringement. The company also stated that it has closed more than 75,000 cases of online copyright infringement.

Lawsuits

Class action lawsuit On November 21, 2014, Morgan Pietz of The Pietz Law Firm, together with Drew Pomerance of Roxborough, Pomerance, Nye & Adreani filed a class action lawsuit against Rightscorp Inc, various John Does, and its owners, Christopher Sabec, Robert Steele, and outside legal counsel, Craig Harmon. The complaint seeks class certification against Rightscorp for violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, California's Rosenthal Act, and abuse of process for the willful misuse of subpoena power by issuing special DMCA subpoenas, under 17 U.S.C. § 512(h). Mr. Pietz's original plaintiff withdrew from the case. After locating replacement plaintiffs, he refiled the suit, but dropped half of the claims originally contained in it. Subsequently, one of Pietz's two surviving claims was stricken by the Court, and in the process, legal fees were awarded against Pietz's client. At approximately the same time, over Pietz's objections, the Court dismissed Harmon (whom Pietz had incorrectly identified as an employee or officer of Rightscorp) from the case. On May 12, 2015, a federal court ordered John Blaha, represented by Pietz, to pay attorney's fees in John Blaha v. Rightscorp. Pietz filed the lawsuit as a class action; he asserted Rightscorp, on behalf of Warner Bros and BMG Rights Management, abused the judicial system by issuing 142 DMCA subpoenas. Rightscorp countered that suing on those grounds was a violation of the first amendment and subject to California's anti-SLAPP laws. The judge sided with Rightscorp, but it still faces an allegation that it violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by making automated calls to demand settlements.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Rightscorp

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Rightscorp claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Rightscorp before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Rightscorp ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Rightscorp

In research: Rightscorp appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Rightscorp in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Rightscorp is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Companies based in Los Angeles County, California, Copyright enforcement companies, Digital rights management, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Rightscorp outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Rightscorp in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Rightscorp means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Rightscorp out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Rightscorp in simple terms?

Rightscorp. Inc (formerly DigitalRights) is a Los-Angeles based copyright enforcement company, which locates alleged copyright violators and collects money from legal damages as well as out of court settlements on behalf of the copyright holder(s).

Why does Rightscorp matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Rightscorp?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Rightscorp.