This section provides you with answers to the most frequently asked questions about MUSO.
If you have a question about any aspect or feature of the MUSO system, please email: contact us.
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What is MUSO? |
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MUSO is an advanced tracking and takedown application for the creative industries.
Every hour of every day we track millions of sources across the Internet to give you an up-to-the-minute view of illegal file sharing activity, allowing you to take timely action in protecting copyrighted material, reclaiming lost revenues and reeducating internet users into visiting legal download websites.
Once you have signed up to MUSO you can instruct our software to search the Internet for a specific downloadable product that you own the copyright on, e.g. music, film, software, ebooks etc.
For each product you add, MUSO finds all instances of cyberlocker files available for download on the web, and allows you to send legal takedown notices for these files at the click of a button.
As an authorized user, you can use MUSO to regulate and control the release of any unlicensed and infringing file sharing activity.
We believe that although illegal file sharing may now be out of hand - with millions of files shared on a daily basis - the use of our intelligent and powerful software interface can begin the process of turning this tide, and illegal file downloads reduced to a trickle in a matter of hours.
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What is a cyberlocker? |
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A cyberlocker is the collective name given to sites which allow users to upload files and then distribute a link which allows anyone to download the file from the cyberlocker site.
Examples of cyberlockers are rapidshare.com, mediafire.com and zippyshare.com.
Cyberlockers make it easy for files to be illegally shared on the internet - anyone can upload your product to a cyberlocker and then post the download link on a popular blog or forum, allowing it to be found and illegally downloaded in seconds.
MUSO finds these links to cyberlocker files and allows you to send legal DMCA takedown notices which instruct the cyberlocker to remove the files so they can no longer be downloaded.
Files are taken down within a few hours, and in many cases just a couple of minutes, and MUSO monitors the file to ensure it is taken down.
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Why target cyberlocker based piracy? |
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Cyberlockers are the faster growing form of online piracy, and also the form that non-technical 'casual illegal dwonloaders' are most likely to use.
There's no barrier to entry in using a cyberlocker for an illegal download, and because the top search results for your product frequently contain cyberlockers links, potential customers are being driven to illegally download.
Several cyberlocker sites are now listed in the top 100 most visited web sites on the Internet, and have hundreds of thousands of page views per month.
The table below show unique monthly visitors and page views for the 5 monst popular cyberlockers (figures taken from Google - July 2011).
| Cyberlocker | Unique monthly visitors | Monthly pageviews |
| 4shared | 55,000,000 | 2,500,000,000 |
| Megaupload | 37,000,000 | 400,000,000 |
| Mediafire | 34,000,000 | 330,000,000 |
| Rapidshare | 23,000,000 | 280,000,000 |
| Fileserve | 19,000,000 | 190,000,000 |
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Most people who download for free won't actually go and buy the product so why try to stop them? |
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This may be true in some cases but it's important to look at the bigger picture.
The top search results on any popular search engine frequently contain cyberlocker links, which are essentially advertising a free version of your product to your potential customers.
In many cases it's easier to download the product from a cyberlocker than via a legal site as there's no login or payment process to be completed on the cyberlocker.
By using MUSO you make finding an illegal download a far more difficult and time consuming process - the consumers will be constantly clicking through to cyberlockers pages that say the file has been taken down due to copyright reasons, which pushes the message that they are taking part in an illegal process.
We believe this appraoch will push casual illegal downloaders back to using legal download sites by making it far harder to download illegaly than legally.
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The minute I take a file down, someone else puts it up somewhere else - how can I keep on top of this? |
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MUSO makes it quick and easy to fight back, by automating all the time consuming aspects of the process - you just login and select the files that you want to be removed from the web.
Also, the blog/forum sites still display the cyberlocker links even after they have been taken down, so the illegal downloader's time is wasted by clcking through to the cyberlocker, and the message that what they're doing is illegal is reenforced as they are show a message saying the file was removed due to copyright infrigement.
To see how effective it is try the free trial and find out how it's easily achievable to stay ahead of the pirates with a small amount of attention everyday.
If you feel you don't have the time to protect your own files, or don't want to spend time doing it, then we can look after this for if you sign up for our managed service, where our dedicated team of anti-piracy specialists will control the entire process.
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My product is only uploaded by fans so why would I want to annoy my fans by removing these files? |
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In the vast majority of cases uploading of illegal content to cyberlockers, and the distribution of these links, is done purely to make money, and not by fans.
The uploader receives money every time a file is downloaded, for example one popular cyberlocker offers rates as high as $40 per 1000 downloads.
In addition to this, the blog/forum sites which publish the links to these downloads make money from advertising, as their sites are currently very popular due to the huge amounts of illagal content available.
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My product can still be downloaded unless I manage to take down every illegal file, so what's the point in taking down any? |
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Every file taken down potentially makes finding an illegal download a more difficult and time consuming process, so the aim is to push the casual illegal downloaders back to using legal sites by making the process of finding an illegal copy of your product a difficult and time consuming process.
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What types of product can MUSO protect? |
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MUSO is used throughout all the creative industries, and can be used to protect music, film, software and ebooks.
Any product that is being illegally shared on the web via cyberlockers can be protected by MUSO.
To find out how many illegal links are available for your product sign up for a free trial today.
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How does MUSO remove the files from the Internet? |
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Even though there are tens of thousands of sites which link to illegal content, the majority of this content is hosted by a handful of cyberlocks.
When you request that a file should be taken down, MUSO sends a DMCA takedown notice to the cyberlocker that is hosting the file.
The cyberlockers will then make that specific file unavailable, and a display a 'content removed' message to anyone who attempts to download the file.
This process happens in a matter of hours, and because MUSO acts for a large number of rights holders we are able to get many takedowns actioned near-instantly - currently over 50% of links are removed in under 5 minutes!
The cyberlockers must comply with DMCA law, otherwise they are liable to be shutdown - something they are extreemly careful to avoid because they are highly profitable businesses.
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