UK anti-piracy body The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) has been relaunched with a new focus, according to reports.
The British intellectual property (IP) watchdog, which used to focus on fighting film and television piracy, has been reimagined as a new organisation which will aim to crack down on video game, music and leisure industry piracy.
The news comes not too long after the US Motion Picture Association (MPA) cut half of the UK-based organisations funding.
FACT has now said that it will look into working with “smaller audiovisual (AV) producers and non-AV IP sectors such as games, music and leisure,” according to director Kieron Sharp.
Despite its changes of focus, the body says that its regulatory activities have led to prominent private prosecutions in recent years, amidst an “epidemic” of pirate TV software circulating the internet.
According to recent research from the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO), 23 per cent of films and 16 per cent of television shows accessed online are downloaded or accessed illegally. Their Annual IP Crime Report, released in October, also found that 28 per cent of Britons admit to obtaining their music downloads from an illegal source.