Kevin Bermeister and Michael Speck Partnering On Brilliant Digital Entertainment

Keven Bermeister and Michael Speck were on opposite sides of the courtroom at one point.  Bermeister was being sued for millions of dollars for being one of the founders of KaZaa with co-founder Nikki Hemming.  Michael Speck, the head of the Music Industry Piracy Investigation was behind the lawsuit against Bermeister.  But in a rather ironic twist of events, Speck and Bermeister have decided to start a new company together.

Brilliant Digital Entertainment
The new company is called Brilliant Digital Entertainment.  Brilliant Digital Entertainment will be selling access to a GlobalFileRegistry (GFR).  GFR is a solution for anti-piracy companies to deter copyright content from spreading across social networks and search engines.

When a pirate searches for specific movies or music, they will be presented with the opportunity to purchase the content.  If they do buy it, then the ISP will get some of the revenue earned.  Brilliant hasn’t launched their product yet, but development is underway.  ISPs and law enforcement agencies are interested in the software.

“When the architecture of the internet that has our technology recognises one of those proven illicit files, it blocks it, disconnects the link to it and adds to the search results the opportunity to purchase the legitimate material,” stated Speck.  “At that point there is no other information collected – the entire action revolves around the identification of the content and action taken against illicit content; there’s an absolute protection of privacy.”

Consequences
However, David Vaile, Executive Director at the University of NSW cyberspace law and policy centre and vice-chairman of the Australian Privacy Foundation indicated that ISPs activity logs may become a honeypot for the music industry if they wanted to prosecute pirates.

Will It Work?
The problem with piracy is that it is a fairly loose term.  If I watch a music video on YouTube that has the whole song streaming?  Is it piracy?  What if I watch it on the Universal Music Group channel?  People have been paying for music less because the full track is available to listen to on sites like YouTube and even on Yahoo! Music.

To add to the confusion, RealPlayer has offered ways to download videos from YouTube.  If I download a video from the Universal Music Group channel on YouTube, is it illegal?  These are questions that can make being a pirate unconsciously confusing for any day-to-day computer user.