Best benefit ever: A one-stop portal for copyright protection

A leading British music-industry association has launched a portal for members to keep track of illegal distribution of their work.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) announced over the weekend that it has launched a Copyright Protection Portal that allows member musicians and businesses to keep an eye on the unlawful distribution of music online. Once on the portal, members can see how many links to their work are currently online and how many have been removed due to BPI’s efforts.

The portal builds on the organization’s work to scrub the web of pirated music. So far, BPI has removed close to 145 million illegal music links from Google and carried out 465 physical investigations in 2014 alone, according to internal figures. The portal provides a way for members to see that progress updated in real time. “This new portal will allow musicians and labels to see how our team is protecting their music on a daily basis. It will help us work together directly with more individual labels and performers and build further on the progress we are making in reducing music piracy levels in the UK,” BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor said in announcing the portal’s launch.