Facebook Bought A Startup To Crack Down On Piracy

no piracyWith over 2 billion active users, Facebook is by far the largest social platform in the world. As a result, the site gets used for tons of purposes — including illegal ones like copyright infringement. Indeed, Facebook wants to prove to content creators that it’s serious about fighting digital piracy. The company did just that this week with its purchase of Source3, a startup company that builds technology to detect when intellectual property has been shared online without permission.

“We’re excited to work with the Source3 team and learn from the expertise they’ve built in intellectual property, trademarks and copyright,” a Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch.

Facebook has struggled with piracy issues before, introducing a “Rights Manager” feature two years ago to help publishers detect when their content was shared without permission. The company even offered publishers the ability earlier this year to leave pirated content up on the site while making money off it. However, the feature offered by Source3 must be more effective than Facebook’s own tools if it felt the need to invest in it.

While this new feature doesn’t necessarily affect everyday users, it’s ultimately good for all of us when Facebook commits itself to fighting all kinds of cybercrime — including piracy.