Igor SalikovICO team member replied on 13 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback regarding our project.
Indeed, there’s a wide variety of products, platforms and services aimed at fighting piracy and other infringements on intellectual property rights. However, they’re clearly not able to solve the problem in its entirety, or even to dramatically decrease these widespread infringements. The numbers speak for themselves – losses of rights holders are increasing with each passing year. The estimates vary, depending on the expert, but even the most conservative put them at 15-20% per year. The conclusion? Piracy and counterfeiting is a highly profitable business, with a market volume of up to $1 trillion per year. That’s what we need to fight this problem. Intellectual property rights are a very broad concept – much like transport, for example. It would be impossible for one company to manage all transport worldwide; it’s the same with intellectual property rights. One law may be in place in the US, but an entirely different one in Uganda or Switzerland. It’s one thing when it comes to downloading movies through a torrent, but an entirely different situation when the issue is unlawful use of artwork (such as cartoons, graphics, etc.) The two aren’t comparable – it would be like comparing an airplane to a coal-fueled locomotive. One isn’t better than the other, they are just entirely different.
Automatic search and recognition systems aren’t equipped to deal with confronting people. Even the latest achievements in the field of neural networks fall short of human imagination, creativity and resourcefulness. You don’t even need to look far for an example – take YouTube. Every day, pirates upload infringed content with no issue. You’ll have no issues finding BBC or National Geographic programs, as well as Netflix TV shows or even full-length movies. Therefore, it’s still impossible to create an effective system without human effort; which is what we are doing. So far, StopTheFakes is the only platform that allows you to attract an unlimited number of doers from all over the world. We focus on both online and offline infringements – to search for violations in “the real world”, rather than on the internet, without any borders, thanks to the advent of blockchain technology. With its help, we can guarantee the honesty and impartiality of our services. Rights holders are guaranteed the upholding of the law in any situation.
Indeed, there’s a wide variety of products, platforms and services aimed at fighting piracy and other infringements on intellectual property rights. However, they’re clearly not able to solve the problem in its entirety, or even to dramatically decrease these widespread infringements. The numbers speak for themselves – losses of rights holders are increasing with each passing year. The estimates vary, depending on the expert, but even the most conservative put them at 15-20% per year. The conclusion? Piracy and counterfeiting is a highly profitable business, with a market volume of up to $1 trillion per year. That’s what we need to fight this problem. Intellectual property rights are a very broad concept – much like transport, for example. It would be impossible for one company to manage all transport worldwide; it’s the same with intellectual property rights. One law may be in place in the US, but an entirely different one in Uganda or Switzerland. It’s one thing when it comes to downloading movies through a torrent, but an entirely different situation when the issue is unlawful use of artwork (such as cartoons, graphics, etc.) The two aren’t comparable – it would be like comparing an airplane to a coal-fueled locomotive. One isn’t better than the other, they are just entirely different.
Automatic search and recognition systems aren’t equipped to deal with confronting people. Even the latest achievements in the field of neural networks fall short of human imagination, creativity and resourcefulness. You don’t even need to look far for an example – take YouTube. Every day, pirates upload infringed content with no issue. You’ll have no issues finding BBC or National Geographic programs, as well as Netflix TV shows or even full-length movies. Therefore, it’s still impossible to create an effective system without human effort; which is what we are doing. So far, StopTheFakes is the only platform that allows you to attract an unlimited number of doers from all over the world. We focus on both online and offline infringements – to search for violations in “the real world”, rather than on the internet, without any borders, thanks to the advent of blockchain technology. With its help, we can guarantee the honesty and impartiality of our services. Rights holders are guaranteed the upholding of the law in any situation.