MediaDefender
defunct anti-infringement company
MediaDefender, Inc. (now Peer Media Technologies) was a company that fought copyright infringement that offered services designed to prevent alleged copyright infringement using peer-to-peer distribution. They used unusual tactics such as flooding peer-to-peer networks with decoy files that tie up users' computers and bandwidth. MediaDefender was based in Los Angeles, California in the United States. As of March 2007, the company had approximately 60 employees and used 2,000 servers hosted in California with contracts for 9 Gbit/s of bandwidth.
These types of organizations are being hired to attempt to stymie peer-to-peer (P2P) traders through a variety of methods including posting fake files online and recording individuals who contribute copyrighted material, but also marketing to individuals using P2P networks. Clients include Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Virgin Records, HBO, Paramount Pictures, and BMG. On August 1, 2005, the digital media entertainment company ARTISTdirect announced that it had acquired MediaDefender for $42.5 million in cash.
In May 2008, MediaDefender performed a distributed-denial-of-service attack on Revision3, despite the fact that they were not hosting unauthorized materials. Jim Louderback, Revision3's CEO, charged that these attacks violated the Economic Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. As of May 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating the incident.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “MediaDefender” as defunct anti-infringement company. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as defunct anti-infringement company. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6805395. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2007, 2005 and 2008.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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This entry incorporates text from “MediaDefender” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.