MPAA-Affiliated Anti-Piracy Group Mysteriously Disappears

[Guest Black-Widow]

While hardly a week passes without news of a file-sharing site or service meeting its demise, it’s far more unusual to hear of their adversaries biting the dust. The MPAA has many anti-piracy affiliates around the world and one of those, a long-standing outfit based in Ireland, was recently linked to the downfall of a large file-sharing site. But now, just a handful of months later, it has completely and inexplicably disappeared.

The Hollywood studios of the MPAA have dozens of global anti-piracy partners who exist to put a local face to international issues.

A sample of the major anti-piracy companies working with the MPAA can be found on the movie outfit’s ‘Around The World‘ page.

There are many famous outfits listed including BREIN, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) and Sweden’s Antipiratbyrån.

INFACT, the Irish National Federation Against Copyright Theft, is also present on the list and has been working away on the film industry’s behalf for many years both on- and offline. Back in 1999 INFACT was listed in court papers as a non-profit subsidiary of the Motion Picture Industry Association.

During 2010 INFACT was targeted by Anonymous’ Operation Payback and as recently as January this year the group was reported as having assisted with the investigation which led to the closure of Library.nu, a site dedicated to indexing ebooks. Indeed, whenever the anti-piracy drum has needed beating in Ireland, INFACT has been there.

Then a few weeks ago TorrentFreak had a tip from a source that has proven reliable in the past. Word on the street was that INFACT would soon close down and there would be an ‘interesting’ reason if we could get someone to speak.

So we contacted INFACT and asked them if there was any truth in the rumor but we received no response. This week we tried to follow up the lead and press INFACT for an answer but to no avail.

It appears that INFACT – the MPAA’s eyes and ears in Ireland – has simply disappeared. There has been no announcement as to its fate and its website, INFACT.ie, has completely gone.

We contacted the MPAA and asked them for information but haven’t heard anything back from them either. Emails to former employees of INFACT also remain unanswered.

So what has happened to INFACT remains a mystery. Maybe they did such a good job in tackling piracy in Ireland they’re just not needed anymore, or maybe the reverse is true. If you know, drop us a line at the usual address…..