Exclusive Interview | Reba Rocket of Takedown Piracy

Exclusive Interview!

Takedown Piracy Clip Sentry — ClipSentry | Takedown Piracy

Takedown Piracy’s Reba Rocket Talks Clips, Pirating, and More!

Here at Girlfriends Films we are always on the lookout to find helpful resources for performers and producers. So when we learned that the folks at Takedown Piracy created ClipSentry.com we were excited to add this amazing resource to our list. We asked Takedown Piracy’s Reba Rocket about the current landscape of online content pirating in the industry today, and her answers just may surprise you! Whether you are a new content creator or veteran performer creating your own videos, this is one interview you don’t want to miss.

Takedown piracy

Exclusive Interview with Reba Rocket of Takedown Piracy

GFF: Who is most at risk for becoming a victim of pirating? B/G/ G/G? Solo camming? Any specific genre? Or, is everyone equally at risk?

RR: Currently, anyone who produces content and displays it on the Internet, is at risk of having their content pirated and having someone else profit from that content! In fact, even if they don’t post it (for example, a cam model doing a private show, and the customer rips the session), it can show up online, elsewhere. Piracy does not just happen to a specific gender or genre – we see infringements, across the board!

GFF: Would it surprise people to find out how much of their content gets stolen?

RR: People are (generally) surprised one of two ways: Either they have no idea just how much their content is pirated, or they think theirs gets pirated a lot more than it really does. For example, I have a client who just signed up, and we’ve already removed almost 17,000 infringements for him. He was shocked! I mean, he knew his content was pirated, but did not imagine it would be such a high number, and we are just getting started with him!

GFF: Where do the content-takers typically post the items that they take? How do they get caught?

RR: The shorter list would be, where they don’t post stolen content! To some extent, the Internet is the “Wild West” for pirated content. Whether it’s a search engine, torrent, file locker, blog, forum, tube site, or any form of social media, you’ll find pirated content. We find pirated content through a litany of tried-and-true methods, some as traditional as searching for the name of a performer/brand/title, and some as sophisticated as our Digital Fingerprinting, which does not require the cooperation of over 142 tube sites. This is particularly of value, as pirates aren’t always kind enough to announce the performer/brand/title of what they steal. But with our Digital Fingerprinting, they can call it “12345” or “shamma-lamma-ding-dong,” and we’ll still find it!

GFF: Is it easy for performers to track and protect their own content? Why or why not?

RR: Well, I wouldn’t say “easy.” As I mentioned, pirates don’t always share content under the name of the performer, brand, or scene title. Often, they obfuscate their offense, by anonymizing it! That said, some performers have very loyal followers, who will notify them when they find an infringement. Social media has a new thread or account or post pop up every nanosecond! We are incredibly adept at finding and removing content, but we aren’t mind readers, and pirates don’t notify us whenever they start a thread or post infringed content. We have to be steps ahead and have our finger on the pulse of the Internet 24/7/365. We have to be smarter than the pirates, and fierce in our search for and removal of infringements. When we cause pirates to have a bad day, we have a good day – and let’s just say, we have a good day, every day!

Also, even if a performer can locate pirated content, knowing how to get that content removed requires some finesse! It’s not always as simple as sending a DMCA notice. Over more than a decade of finding and removing content, we’ve learned the “sweet spot” for lots of sites that (frankly) tend to ignore the individual producer.

GFF: Who would you say is more at risk for having their content pirated, studios or independent content creators and performers?

RR: Any source of content from which a pirate thinks they can make money, is a source of pirated content. Studios, clip stores, independent content producers, cam models, and performers are all part of pirates’ supply chain!

GFF: How did ClipSentry come about? Why did you see a need for this type of digital protection?

RR: Our anti-piracy fight started over 12 years ago, mostly with studios or well-known performers. We had already started working with some large clip stores, but we were getting more and more calls and emails from independent producers who used clip stores we were not working with. What I realized was, a few clip stores (like iWantClips and Clips4Sale) really care about their producers and their content, and others just want the appearance of caring. What I mean by that is, some clip stores claim to “protect” their producers, but we (not only) find content from those clip stores all over the internet, but their producers are inundating us with pleas for assistance.

GFF: What are some signs that performers and content creators should look out for to tell whether their content is being stolen?

RR: Generally speaking, the minute a performer or content creator posts anything online, they should assume it could be or will be pirated. Sometimes, they’ll put their performer name into a search engine (like Google), and pirated content will appear, but search engines will populate just about any search term, so a producer can’t assume the search results include infringements. There is a level of filtering, confirmation, and know-how required. Often, the links to pirated content comes up before legitimate content! As I mentioned, though, pirates don’t always do everyone the courtesy of using a performer’s name, so searching general terms (hot blonde, dildo, stepmom, goddess…) will bring up millions of results, but none of them are the performer’s content, and that’s where our digital fingerprinting comes in. Sometimes, performers and indie producers have fans that will alert them when a new social media thread or infringement pops up. More often, the producer has no idea how much of their content is pirated, no idea how to find it, and no idea how to remove it.

GFF: Do you have any advice for new talent or established performers looking to start independently producing their own content?

RR: Do your due diligence! Ask questions! Find out if the site where you intend to post your content actually does provide true, thorough anti-piracy services. Find out who provides that service – in other words, look up the company, check their Google Transparency Report (to get an idea of how accurate they are), talk to actual people who use their services (as opposed to paid “ambassadors” or just taking that company’s word for it). If you post content on a clip site that doesn’t adequately provide content protection, hire us! There are definitely companies who claim to “do” what we do, but what we are finding is, they have very low removal rates (what they report vs. what is actually removed), or they fudge numbers, or they abuse the DMCA, or they make it very difficult to cancel your account. You have the right to ask as many questions as you need to, and if they’re not answered to your satisfaction, you are not obligated to work with that company.

*** Special thanks to Reba Rocket and Takedown Piracy for the interview and for all you do! ***

Reba Rocket is the Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Takedown Piracy. Her very eclectic background includes 7 years as a morning-show radio jock, news anchor, a late-night television show actress on Houston’s NBC affiliate, the Syndicate Coordinator for one of the world’s largest securities firm, a licensed Real Estate Agent in 3 states, and more! The common theme through all her careers included some form of marketing and communication, and she’s thrilled to have the privilege of working for one of the most successful anti-piracy/content-protection/copyright-enforcement firms, anywhere.