LOS ANGELES — Takedown Piracy has launched Operation Minerva, a new service created to combat Deepfakes and revenge porn.
According to the company, which is dedicated to protecting content owners from the damaging effects of piracy, its new service is available now to anyone and everyone, celebrities and non-celebrities alike.
Operation Minerva, which is named after the Roman goddess of wisdom and strategic warfare, targets the makers of Deepfakes or those who digitally alter images or video of actual people onto copyrighted content (often of pornographic nature) in order to embarrass, extort, defraud or otherwise besmirch someone. It also targets those who traffic revenge porn or actual sex videos which they use to extort or cause damage to a person’s reputation.
“This is an opportunity for victims of nonconsensual pornography and Deepfake abuse to use sophisticated tools to protect themselves, which is a critical advantage previously unavailable to our clients,” says Adam Dodge, legal and technology director of Laura’s House, a California-based domestic violence nonprofit that is collaborating with Operation Minerva.
As recently reported by CNN, Brookings and Fortune, sophisticated imaging tools and software have made the existence of Deepfake videos commonplace, targeting celebrities or those in the public eye. Today, anyone with a degree of understanding of these tools can manipulate content and insert anyone’s face to a seemingly realistic situation.
“We are pleased to present Operation Minerva,” says Takedown Piracy CEO Nate Glass. “[It is] a much-needed service developed to combat the growing scourge of Deepfakes and revenge porn.”
“The sophistication of computer software and imaging tools have given those with criminal intent a vehicle to spread lies, and otherwise assassinate the character of any person,” Glass adds. “Operation Minerva is designed to both detect, and stop the spread of doctored videos, or content published without consent, immediately.”
Glass says that revenge porn is also on the rise, which is genuine footage of people having sex that is published without their consent as a way to exact revenge, extort or humiliate them.
“Part of the problem has been that no one has been able to go after Deepfake videos because altering someone’s image isn’t necessarily illegal,” Glass explains. “But because we also represent the copyright holders for content often altered by these violators, we are able to go after the criminals for copyright infringement, thus Operation Minerva is ideal for celebrities, politicians, professional athletes, artists and many others in the public eye.”
With its unique digital fingerprinting technology, Operation Minerva is able to identify Deepfakes and revenge porn on any of the video sharing sites it monitors, including more than 80 tube sites. If a Deepfake or revenge porn video is uploaded to a private, or non-monitored site, such as Vimeo, the victim can provide a link to the footage, and then once it has been digitally fingerprinted, it can be traced and removed anywhere on the internet.
Many states have laws against revenge porn and those impacted by it are encouraged to contact an attorney in conjunction with retaining Operation Minerva.
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