Japan’s adult video industry has launched a massive manhunt for fans of illegal content on P2P networks. Local companies have begun actively using specialized software to monitor BitTorrent – a system that logs the IP addresses of users who distribute and download copyrighted videos, before copyright owners go to court to disclose the personal data of infringers. That is, yes, they download these distros themselves and then monitor the torrents and peers on them.
In recent years, the Japanese judicial system has been willing to make concessions to copyright holders. Internet providers are required by law to transmit the real names and home addresses of monitored users. Once their identities are confirmed, users receive a formal pre-trial letter demanding huge monetary damages – on average around 500,000 yen (approximately 270,000 rubles) per discovered document – and threatening real lawsuits and criminal liability.
Lawyers advise Japanese victims not to bury their heads in the sand and ask a lawyer to intervene – fines can often be reduced through negotiation. However, the scale of the problem is growing rapidly—the number of court orders requiring user deanonymization has increased significantly recently, and the collection process itself is turning into a lucrative conveyor belt for studios.