The London branch of Warner Bros. Entertainment is looking for a student to spy on file-sharers. According to a job listing found on the University of Manchester website, the company is offering a twelve-month paid internship for a student with strong IT skills and a willingness to lurk on web forums, monitor torrent sites, and develop automated bots to scan for pirated content belonging to Warner Bros. and NBC Universal. In other words, they’re delegating the tedious dirty work of enforcing their copyrights to the sort of tech-savvy college kid most likely to download it all for free online. This tactic makes perfect sense, but it also opens up the potential for a hilarious double-agent scenario: The pro–file sharing blog TorrentFreak has publicized the job and encouraged its readers to apply for the gig in order to pass along inside info on the company’s anti-piracy endeavors. [Guardian UK]
