Piracy Police Accidentally Hit Non-Pirates

MediaDefender’s job is to hunt down pirates. The company specializes in seeding piracy sites with fake files, or “spoofs,” frustrating would-be media thieves. There’s just one problem: Its latest victim, Revision3 Corp, isn’t actually pirating anything. An Internet TV network, Revision3 was using file sharing technology—legally—to spread its content, when MediaDefender flooded it with spoofs, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Revision3 is furious, saying MediaDefender should have investigated before launching its attack. But MediaDefender counters that Revision3 should have secured itself. A recent software change made Revision3 vulnerable to pirates. “All we saw was an open, public [system],” says MediaDefender’s CEO. (More piracy stories.)