; 15 years ago 2000 10 19 1 founder john giacobbi registration no. 04093131 1 purpose intellectual property rights headquarters pewsey wiltshire uk 1 location london united kingdom area served international services copyright enforcement digital rights management website building hosting and management video editing owner web sheriff limited director john edouard giacobbi 1 secretary robert arthur davage employees 20 website websheriff.com web sheriff is an anti piracy company based in the united kingdom that provides intellectual property copyright and privacy rights protection services for clients that include record labels musical artists film studios news media organizations and celebrities . the company monitors various websites that host links to downloads of music and film . web sheriff has been in operation since 2000 with two offices in the uk . the company was founded by intellectual property lawyer john giacobbi 2 who acts as its managing director . web sheriff sends legal take down notice to bittorrent and other file sharing sites and also engages with blogs and fansites negotiating for copyrighted music to be removed offering fans free official promotional tracks and clips from the artist as replacement for the leaked material . 3 4 according to the los angeles times web sheriff is a leading advocate of the soft sell in the anti piracy industry . 2 contents 1 description 2 operating methods 3 history 4 reception 5 controversy 6 references 7 external links description edit as an internet copyright protection firm web sheriff performs a wide range of online rights security and copy protection services . 5 these include protection from copyright infringement 6 libel 7 cyber bullying 8 9 identity theft privacy issues of social media stock market share price protection 10 policing trading sites 11 and recovery of fraudulently registered domain names . 12 it also furnishes online security for concert tours . 13 in addition to online rights protection the company designs builds and maintains websites and youtube channels and provides editing and filming for them . it manufactures watermarked cds and dvds 7 operating methods edit web sheriff uses proprietary software and web crawler programs to search the internet using human auditing to determine the type of site that is posting its clients copyrighted material . 14 it relies heavily on phone calls and relationship building 15 and when locating unauthorized links it targets the persons running the sites . 16 the supposed offending party is sent a take down notice before further action is taken . 15 some torrent sites and file sharing sites such as mediafire and rapidshare provide access to the company to remove infringing content itself . 17 the los angeles times described the company s approach as representing a sharp turn in the recording industry s life and death struggle with piracy one driven largely by performers and their managers rather than the record companies . 2 when it contracts to protect new music releases the company encourages the artists it represents to give fans several tracks ahead of the release . 18 history edit web sheriff was founded in 2000 by former music attorney and industry consultant 4 john giacobbi who acts as president 11 19 managing director 20 and is referred to in the press as the web sheriff . 4 21 22 in 2005 the company was directly responsible for the removal of the ken bigley execution footage videos posted on a terrorist website after bigley s beheading . 23 web sheriff related that it was approached by the mail on sunday after authorities had refused to intervene citing a lack of power . the video was hosted on a website entitled headlessamericans.com and the isp initially refused to take it down by saying it was protected by freedom of speech but complied finally after 48 hours of argument . 24 in the same year in work done for the mail on sunday the company spokesman writing in that newspaper disclosed that web sheriff also closed down the extreme pornographic strangulation sites at the center of the notorious jane longhurst murder case . 25 26 web sheriff first came to international notoriety when it was hired by prince in september 2007 to disappear entirely from the internet . 5 the star s spokesman related that prince believes strongly that as an artist the music rights must remain with the artist and thus copyrights should be protected across the board . very few artists have ever taken this kind of action over their rights . web sheriff announced it would launch lawsuits against youtube ebay and the pirate bay on behalf of prince if they refused compliance in removing links to his unauthorized photos videos and music . 3 27 28 peter sunde co founder of the pirate bay dismissed the threats stating that american law was not applicable in sweden . 29 youtube complied by removing over 2 000 videos from their site and ebay removed more than 300 auctions . 20 30 31 in november 2007 three fans sites were given notice to remove all images of the singer his lyrics and anything linked to prince s likeness . 32 some of the prince fans fought back formed their own organization called prince fans united and hired an attorney . 5 33 34 multiple unauthorized overseas online sites selling merchandise featuring prince were shut down . 35 reception edit music fans and bloggers often initially respond angrily when first approached by web sheriff on its clients official and unofficial forums . according to the evening standard music blogging sites are littered with comments with the sheriff s contact details at the top thanking bloggers for obeying the rules . fans sometimes interpret this as web sheriff saying i ve got my eye on you . 6 the company reports that eventually most of the fans tend to respect the wishes of their favored artists by cooperating . 15 as related by the guardian the prodigy fans on the brainkiller forum engaged with web sheriff on a thread that lasted through 18 pages . some of the fans who had been hostile at the beginning then asked what they could do to help the band . 36 37 web sheriff s method of using a velvet glove approach to appeal to fans has been said by randy lewis with the los angeles times to have notable successes including lady gaga s born this way and adele s 21 . 2 this journalist also notes that despite these examples of success of the diplomatic strategy the company s gentle approach still has skeptics with some critics calling it naive brad buckles an executive in copyright enforcement with riaa was quoted as saying it s certainly well intended and may work in some cases . the problem is in many many cases you re dealing with people who have no respect whatsoever for the intellectual property of record labels or the artists themselves . 2 a billboard journalist concludes that to appeal to sites that post links to unauthorized music and engaging with fans and redirecting them to authorized content by the artist is a strategy with a future if implemented properly . 3 controversy edit web sheriff have sent a letter to musicbrainz asking them to remove the informations saying that the birth name of taio cruz is adetayo ayowale onile ere . musicbrainz refused to remove that information without a birth certificate . they received an image of a uk birth certificate but found that it contained some suspicious data . his father s occupation was listed as lawyer a us term . the administrative region was given as county of westminster instead of city of westminster and so on . 38 according to web sheriff the image came from the client . 39 references edit a b c d web sheriff limited . companies house uk . retrieved june 10 2016 . a b c d e lewis randy 9 june 2011 . piracy watchdog s mild bite . los angeles times . retrieved 29 november 2011 . a b c new sheriff in town pdf . billboard upfront . 1 july 2011 . retrieved 22 august 2011 . a b c daniels andrew 12 april 2011 . the most hated man on the internet . men s health . retrieved 12 april 2011 . a b c rolling stone battle over online piracy gets a sheriff andy greene rs 1077 april 2009 a b off the record web sheriff is watching you . evening standard . 4 march 2009 . retrieved 12 march 2010 . a b weiss dan 10 december 2008 . meet the web sheriff . the village voice . retrieved 14 march 2011 . noel edmonds confronts facebook troll . telegraph.co.uk . 1 april 2012 . retrieved 1 april 2012 . reeves philip 15 april 2012 . british attempt to squash online bullying . london npr . retrieved 25 april 2012 . web sheriff has helped everyone from lady gaga to michael jackson and on his way to sydney . music news australia . 13 january 2012 . retrieved 13 january 2012 . a b esquire magazine uk edition meet the web sheriff august 2009 web sheriff goes to the mats against russian clone . encore . 4 july 2011 . retrieved 17 july 2011 . reinartz joe 10 march 2011 . meet the online police . pollstar . retrieved 10 march 2011 . cooper duncan 25 april 2011 . respect yourself interview with the web sheriff . the fader . retrieved 25 april 2011 . a b c sandoval greg 25 september 2007 . web sheriff doing it different than media defender . cnet . retrieved 14 march 2011 . 1 facing the music there s a new anti file sharing sheriff in town and he s getting results . the spokesman review . 18 february 2008 . access date requires url help youngs ian 16 august 2011 . stars step up wars on music leaks . bbc . retrieved 17 august 2011 . lindvall helienne 20 august 2009 . behind the music how can artists prevent their work from being leaked . the guardian . retrieved 13 january 2012 . sandoval greg 14 september 2007 . first prince now village people target youtube . cnet . retrieved 13 january 2012 . a b prince to sue youtube ebay over unauthorized content . billboard . retrieved 12 march 2010 . stevens serita . the web sheriff a new kind of enforcement . lasplash.com . retrieved 3 february 2012 . gardner eriq 1 february 2012 . hollywood piracy watch magnolia pictures sends the most takedown notices to twitter . the hollywood reporter . retrieved 1 february 2012 . the times arctic monkeys go bananas over file sharing adam sherwin 31 march 2007 kaufmann andy august 2011 . exec profile john giacobbi . musicconnection.com . p. 22 . retrieved 27 december 2011 . abu musab al zarqawi who was a terrorist warlord had a website with execution footage of some of their hostages . one of the u.k. newspapers was upset by this and the authorities said well there s nothing we can do we re powerless . the paper came to us and asked if we d help . the video was bounced through a couple isp s in japan . it was harder to locate because of the japanese encryption but the midsection for the isp was american . they were hosting this website headlessamericans.com . we notified the isp and informed them that what they were hosting was an incitement to racial hatred religious hatred and violence . what their customer was doing was illegal and a breach of their own terms and conditions . the isp initially refused to take it down saying the website was protected by freedom of speech . we said the white house would be very interested in their version of freedom of speech . after 48 hours of arguing they relented . giacobbi