If you want to knock a little sheen off that one friend who always takes the moral high ground here’s an easy trick – ask them if they’ve ever watched a pirated movie or TV show on their PC, or whether a friend has ever given them an album on a flashstick to copy.

It’s kind of unavoidable you see, although the same can no longer be said for those who upload pirated versions of pre-released digital copies of movies online.

Stellenbosch-based Custos Media Technologies are the brains behind the operation, using Bitcoin to catch the skelms. Here’s Fin24:

Custos then has developed world-first, patented technology that embeds a small instance of Bitcoin wallet in each pre-release digital copy of films. The Bitcoin wallet identifies which recipient has received the copy and cannot be removed from these digital files as it is embedded in a watermark and the physical display details in the content.

If a film is uploaded to a piracy website and a bounty hunter finds a Bitcoin wallet embedded in the copy, information is released to the cryptocurrency’s global ‘general ledger’ dubbed the blockchain. This in turns reveals the identity of the uploader of the pre-release content, even if the content is uploaded in the ‘dark web’.

Considering just how much money piracy takes from the pockets of powerhouse film companies Custos could be raking in serious cash soon, although at present the system is only used by local independent film houses.

Relax fans of the illegal download, you’re safe for now:

…despite the startup gathering momentum and making it more transparent about how digital copies get leaked, van Rooyen told Fin24 that his company’s focus is not on the downloaders themselves.

“They (our clients) are not hunting the downloaders,” [CEO G-J van Rooyen] said.

“They’re not trying to stop piracy after the genie is out of the bottle. We help them find what’s called the original infringer and that’s usually somebody they know, that’s usually one of their customers, one of their reviewers,” he said.

See, it isn’t all bad news.

[source:fin24]

[imagesource:here]