Busting people who download pirated content and claiming damages is 150 times more profitable than selling it legally on the internet. Pirate-hunting has now turned into a lucrative business.

Pirate-hunting companies generate their revenue by identifying alleged pirates and sending them notifications, demanding to pay damages for illicit acquisition of copyrighted content. Violators often pay out of fear of legal action, which allows the firms to hand over part of the cash to the copyright owner and leave the rest for themselves.

The relatively new scheme is used mostly in Germany and the UK due to the legislative opportunity there. A presentation by one of them, Germany-based DigiRights Solutions, reveals how profitable this business actually is, reports TorrentFreak news website.

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DigiRights Solutions says it claims an average $650 per offence from an alleged pirate, i.e. per pirated song. About 25% of recipients agree to pay, and the company gets to keep four fifths of the money, or $520, while $130 goes to copyright owner.

The document goes on to compare this to the revenue generated by online music shops. With prices of tracks being around 90 cents, pursuing filesharers turns out to be astounding 150 times more profitable than selling actual music.

Each month, DigiRights Solutions says it is able to pursue 5,000 people per title. With a quarter of those resulting in a $130 payment, it would take 150,000 online sales for the copyright owner to have comparable revenue, the report says.