May 10, 2015, 15:01 pm
Periscope wants to find a better way to combat piracy.
The livestreaming app found itself in the headlines this weekend as people flocked there to catch the Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao fight -- for free.
Founder Kayvon Beykpour told attendees at TechCrunch Disrupt on Tuesday that they were "completely prepared" for the event, which was a rare combination of a lot of hype, a lot of interest and incredibly expensive tickets.
Periscope, which was acquired by Twitter (TWTR, Tech30) in January, anticipated that the rights holders of the fight -- which included HBO and Showtime -- might reach out to them with take-down requests.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) process mandates the removal of content that violates copyright within 24 hours -- but it's not suited to handle live-stream requests.
Beykpour said they received 66 takedown requests on Saturday -- 30 of which they removed within minutes. They weren't able to take down the remaining requests because the streams had already expired.
He said there's still a lot of room for improvement -- said a clear need for innovation in the DMCA process: "We'd totally be game to help innovate in that space more."
Beykpour said there are tools that can and should be used to handle piracy concerns in real-time. Periscope -- which has grown from 9 to 13 people and operates separately from Twitter -- is interested in partnerships to develop these, he said.
Still, he said some of the attention to the pirated streams was overblown.
"Generally, there's way more media attention than there is a problem" he said, adding that with the hyped pirating of Game of Thrones streams, there were probably many more articles than streams.
Beykpour, who had an Android in his pocket, also said the company is working hard to develop an Android version of the product.
"We don't feel particularly rushed to spit something out but we're absolutely working on [it]," he said.
The livestreaming app found itself in the headlines this weekend as people flocked there to catch the Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao fight -- for free.
Founder Kayvon Beykpour told attendees at TechCrunch Disrupt on Tuesday that they were "completely prepared" for the event, which was a rare combination of a lot of hype, a lot of interest and incredibly expensive tickets.
Periscope, which was acquired by Twitter (TWTR, Tech30) in January, anticipated that the rights holders of the fight -- which included HBO and Showtime -- might reach out to them with take-down requests.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) process mandates the removal of content that violates copyright within 24 hours -- but it's not suited to handle live-stream requests.
Beykpour said they received 66 takedown requests on Saturday -- 30 of which they removed within minutes. They weren't able to take down the remaining requests because the streams had already expired.
He said there's still a lot of room for improvement -- said a clear need for innovation in the DMCA process: "We'd totally be game to help innovate in that space more."
Beykpour said there are tools that can and should be used to handle piracy concerns in real-time. Periscope -- which has grown from 9 to 13 people and operates separately from Twitter -- is interested in partnerships to develop these, he said.
Still, he said some of the attention to the pirated streams was overblown.
"Generally, there's way more media attention than there is a problem" he said, adding that with the hyped pirating of Game of Thrones streams, there were probably many more articles than streams.
Beykpour, who had an Android in his pocket, also said the company is working hard to develop an Android version of the product.
"We don't feel particularly rushed to spit something out but we're absolutely working on [it]," he said.