Piracy lawsuits are a big money sink for the lobby groups

If you're a media lobby group like the BPI, MPAA, RIAA, FACT or any of the numerous others dotted about the globe, then you get the majority of your funding from studios paying you to be their digital piracy watchdogs. However, there's another method of drumming up the Christmas bonuses and that's suing pirates. Unfortunately, it turns out that's not as lucrative as you might think though, as a new report on Rightscorp shows that for every one dollar it recovers through legal action, it has to spend three.

Instead of taking people to court though, Rightscorp mainly focuses on bullying and blackmail, sending people threatening letters demanding $20 or so for a single song download. As TorrentFreak explains, sometimes people pay it, sometimes they don't. If they do, thinking that it will just go away, Rightscorp usually demands more money for other songs (because who just downloads one song?). For those that don't pay, chances are Rightscorp will leave you alone, as it isn't going to waste any more money on paper, ink or people's time, but even so, it can't make this venture profitable.

You're right it is. Though not the kind you mean. 

In 2013, Rightscorp brought in just under $325,000 (£195,000), but of course it isn't collecting that for itself, but for studios. When it gets that $20 through the post, some of it goes to Warner Bros, Universal and a variety of other studios. A lot of it in-fact. Out of that $325,000, over $160,000 of it went to the studios.

Combine that with admin costs and Rightscorp managed to lose a total of $2.134 million last year.

KitGuru Says: Piracy doesn't pay kids. Remember that.

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