Federal Bureau of Investigation - Press Room

Does the number TWENTY THREE BILLION DOLLARS get your attention?

That's how much money was lost last year as a result of criminals swiping copyright-protected digital copies of music, movies, software, and games... and distributing them through websites, chat rooms, mass email, FTP, and peer-to-peer networks.

And there's a name to fit the crime: "intellectual property theft."

Today, February 19, in Los Angeles, California, the FBI's Assistant Director for Cyber, Jana Monroe, joined Brad Buckles of the Recording Industry Association of America, Ken Jacobsen of the Motion Picture Association of America, Keith Kupferschmid of the Software and Information Industry Association, and Ric Hirsch, Entertainment Software Association to highlight our joint efforts to stop the theft of copyright protected material.

These efforts specifically target criminal enterprises -- and link the considerable resources and efforts of private sector companies and trade associations with law enforcement partnerships (on local, state, federal, and international levels) to identify and stop them.

And that's not all.

Did you notice that "new" FBI seal in the corner? Only 5 stars; no laurel leaves; shield moved up to the top of the blue field. That's the official FBI Anti-Piracy seal, just unveiled today... and you'll be seeing a lot of it in the days to come. Not just on the warning screens of videos and DVDs, but on the millions and millions of CDs, games, software packages, and other digital media that are produced each year.

Oh, and one last thing:

Protect yourself! If you use peer-to-peer systems on the web (like Freenet or mp3 download sites), you could be asking for big trouble. If P2P software isn't configured correctly, it can open up your entire hard drive for others to see and download. If you're on a P2P network, you could be bumping up against all the worms and viruses carried by other users of that network. And you could become a carrier of worms and viruses that are written by misanthropic hackers specifically to spread via popular P2P networks. Run don't walk to our cyber letter , addressed to you, for details on these issues and on the crimes associated with P2P networks.