Trident Media Guard (TMG) is a French company that specializes in software to prevent unauthorized copying of files over the Internet. Founded in 2002 by Alain Guislain and Bastien Casalta, it is located in

Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire (, ; ) is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France. It is the third-largest suburb of the city of Nantes, and is adjacent to it on the southeast, across the river Loire. It has two railway stati ...

near

Nantes Nantes (, ; ; or ; ) is a city in the Loire-Atlantique department of France on the Loire, from the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. The city is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, sixth largest in France, with a pop ...

. It aims to "provide services to major publishing companies of the recording and film industry to stop the loss of revenue due to illegal downloads on peer-to-peer networks." When it was created, it benefited from the incubator functions of Atlanpole, and a significant subscription from the Rennes venture capitalist Ouest Venture. Thierry Lhermitte entered the capital in June 2009 and is a director. It was selected in late January 2010, by the music and film industry to address copyright infringements on the Internet as part of the

HADOPI law The French HADOPI law (, English: "Supreme Authority for the Distribution of Works and Protection of Copyright on the Internet") or Creation and Internet law () was introduced during 2009, providing what is known as a graduated response as a mean ...

. In this context, it will aim to identify the IP addresses of users making illegal downloading, and then send that information to

HADOPI The French HADOPI law (, English: "Supreme Authority for the Distribution of Works and Protection of Copyright on the Internet") or Creation and Internet law () was introduced during 2009, providing what is known as a graduated response as a mean ...

. Also, it also works with other companies (Canal Plus, LFP, France Télévisions), in order to fight against the streaming retransmission of illegal streams during various sporting events. Trident Media Guard and

Thierry Lhermitte Thierry Lhermitte (; born 24 November 1952) is a French actor, director, writer and producer, best known for his comedic roles. He was a founder of the comedy troupe ''Le Splendid'' in the 1970s, along with, among others, Christian Clavier, Géra ...

jointly received the Special Mention prize Orwell Internet at Big Brother Awards 2010. On May 13, 2011, Bluetouff, on the Reflets.info site, revealed the existence of an unprotected company server that leaked personal data as well as scripts for processing this data. This incident earned him a triple audit (CNIL, HADOPI and HSC, mandated by the rights holders) and a cut in the interconnection used to communicate the IP addresses of downloaders to HADOPI. The conclusions of these audits will never be made public, only those of Bluetouff will be after it has presented its conclusions to the HADOPI rights protection commission.

See also

References