[Infowarrior] - Hey students: snitch on pirates, earn $26K a year

[Richard Forno]

Hey students: snitch on pirates, earn $26K a year
By Jacqui Cheng | Last updated about an hour ago
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/hey-students-snitch-on-pirate-classmates-earn-26k-a-year.ars

Movie studios spying on P2P networks is a phenomenon most users  
suspect occurs, but have never really seen proof of. Until now, that is 
—Warner Bros. in the UK has published a job listing for an intern to  
dig through known piracy mediums in order to "gather information" and  
report back to the studio. For £17,500 (or US$26,000) per year, this  
internship sounds like the perfect opportunity for a student to learn  
about the ins and outs of copyright—and possibly get ostracized by  
content-lovin' peers.
According to the job listing (PDF) taken from the University of  
Manchester (first posted by TorrentFreak), the year-long internship  
would involve combing IRC networks, forums, and other P2P mediums for  
Warner Bros. and NBCU content. The goal would be to find new networks  
and private filesharing sites for informational purposes, but that's  
not all. Warner also wants the intern to be able to develop bots to  
scan the Internet for links, send infringement notices, perform "trap  
purchases of pirated product," and collect "intelligence" on pirate  
activities.

The listing doesn't seem to imply that the company expects interns to  
turn in specific individuals, but who really knows what Warner expects  
when it says to "gather information on pirate sites, pirate groups and  
other pirate activities." It also makes us wonder how Warner plans to  
protect itself from spies from the outside—that is, members of the  
"pirate" community who want to learn more about the company's anti- 
piracy practices. After all, TorrentFreak is already encouraging its  
readers to apply for the internship so they can provide updates on  
Warner's efforts.

We reached out to Warner for answers to these questions, but did not  
hear back by publication time.

Warner Bros. has been in the news more and more lately for its  
assertive moves in the movie rental space. After talking both Netflix  
and Redbox into delaying the DVD release of Warner's titles for 28  
days after they hit the streets, the studio promptly turned around and  
gave same-day release rights to Blockbuster. It's clear that the  
company is still trying to keep the dying DVD sales market alive, and  
its online anti-piracy efforts are intended to bolster this strategy.