Warner Bros. Looking to Hire Secret Pirate Spy

Photo by Jane McEntegart

Warner Bros. is looking for an intern in the UK who is "IT literate" and is willing to help the entertainment industry in its fight against piracy.

TorrentFreak found a job posting listed at the University of Manchester that reads as follows:

During the 12 month internship, duties will include: monitoring local Internet forums and IRC for pirated WB and NBCU content and in order to gather information on pirate sites, pirate groups and other pirate activities; finding new and maintaining existing accounts on private sites; scanning for links to hosted pirated WB and NBCU content and using tools to issue takedown requests; maintaining and developing bots for Internet link scanning system (training provided); preparing sending of infringement notices and logging feedback; performing trap purchases of pirated product and logging results; inputting pirate hard goods data and other intelligence into the forensics database; selecting local keywords and submitting local filenames for monitoring and countermeasure campaigns and periodically producing research documents on piracy related technological developments. Various training will be provided.

The intern will be paid a salary of £17,500 (around US$26,000) for the year-long position that starts this July. If you think you've got what it takes, check out the listing here (PDF).

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • SlyMaelstrom
    That's just what the UK needs... a cocky 18 year-old intern who defines himself as "leet" to tell all the computer illiterate big wigs what's up in the world of internet piracy.

    Hey Warner Bros. You've probably got a hundred senior graphic artists on staff that know more about computers than any 18 year old willing to take a £17,500 internship ever would.
    Reply
  • Vestin
    This might actually work. If pirates don't trust anyone, piracy will dwindle to harmless proportions...

    Also - it shouldn't be hard to find a traitor amongst the greedy opportunists...
    Reply
  • JonathanDeane
    So I can sit around and download movies and music all day.... AND get paid for it? omg where do I sign up lol
    Reply
  • indigoataxia
    where's the US version??? sign me up too!
    Reply
  • ominous prime
    Warner Brothers wasting more money battling piracy rather than coming up with a business model that works in the 21st century. Awesome.
    Reply
  • babybeluga
    26k for a no-skills needed internet job?

    Is WB that desperate?
    Reply
  • They don't mean the kiddy sites like The Pirate Bay or Minova. They want the big fish E.G. private trackers which are hard to get in.
    Reply
  • tayb
    I'd apply if I lived over there.
    Reply
  • bittoe
    no one wants to pay $10-$12 and be forced to sit through thirty minutes of commercials to watch a crappy movie.
    No one wants to pay $49 for the DVD and be forced to watch the "upcoming events". The only thing WB has been successfully at, is forcing its patrons to pirate.
    Reply
  • dstln
    tpho2500They don't mean the kiddy sites like The Pirate Bay or Minova. They want the big fish E.G. private trackers which are hard to get in.
    Stuff like pirate bay/demonoid/etc ARE the big fish, I'm sure much much more pirating of their content happens there. And this seems a bit silly, I'm sure they could just find people involved in these sites and pay them to rat it out. Everyone has a price.
    Reply