Overview
As one of the world’s most widely used creative software platforms, this brand empowers millions of users to design, collaborate, and publish online. But that same popularity has made it a top target for digital piracy. Tutorials showing how to unlock premium features for free, unauthorized resellers offering full access on social media, and cloned accounts on marketplaces were rapidly multiplying, putting its subscription model and reputation at risk.
The brand needed a scalable solution that could detect and remove piracy-related infringements across social media, video platforms, marketplaces, and websites, without requiring heavy manual effort from its internal team.
The Challenge
Digital piracy continues to impact software and creative platforms worldwide. Studies show that over 45% of users share passwords for digital services, and credential-abuse attacks have surged more than 350% year over year, fueling unauthorized access to paid tools. At the same time, piracy-related content, such as videos teaching how to bypass authentication or unlock premium features, continues to spread across social video platforms.
Against that backdrop, this creative platform faced a persistent wave of infringements:
- Over 139,000 infringing posts and listings identified annually
- 47.7% linked to full-on piracy (unauthorized access or software hacks)
- 51.7% tied to account sharing and resale of paid credentials
The highest activity emerged on social media and video platforms, where resellers promoted “Pro lifetime access” at discounted prices, and tutorials explained how to bypass login restrictions.
With only a small three-person internal validation team, manual review couldn’t keep pace with the scale or speed of these threats. The brand needed automation rules that could detect and prioritize high-risk infringements in real time, freeing its team to focus on strategy, not manual takedowns.
The Turning Point
The turning point came when automated keyword and pattern-based rules pre-set and approved by the client began surfacing and validating piracy listings at scale. Rules such as “Pro lifetime access,” “Pro for sale,” and “Pro with misspelling variations” flagged infringing posts across the internet instantly, enabling Red Points’ platform to move detections through validation and enforcement with minimal manual work.
Enforcement extended beyond social media to marketplaces, as well as video platforms where “software hack” tutorials were actively removed.
“We’ve successfully automated so much of the process that most infringements are now handled instantly, without needing constant manual review.”
— Red Points’ Customer Success Manager
The Solution
Automation at scale
The protection strategy is built on a rule-based automation system covering social media, marketplaces, and web domains.
Keyword-based rules targeting title and URL patterns (e.g., “Pro Lifetime,” “Free Access,” or common misspellings).
Price-based logic automatically discarding legitimate listings while validating low-priced offers as fakes.
Blacklisted domains ensuring instant enforcement across known infringing sites.
Fake-image fingerprints identifying repeated visuals tied to piracy tutorials.
Stock-level triggers surfacing large-volume offers linked to illegal resellers.
Design-Driven Detection Rules
Red Points worked with Graff to define specific criteria based on pricing, design patterns, and sub-market triggers, allowing the system to automatically surface likely counterfeits.
Key automation layers include:
- Price-based logic to automatically discard high-priced original listings and validate low-priced fakes.
- Blacklisted domains, where all content is automatically removed due to known counterfeit activity.
- Fake-image fingerprint rules, where specific known-fake product images trigger instant enforcement
- Stock-based rules, flagging unrealistic inventory levels often used in counterfeit listings.
These rules ensure priority on threats most likely to harm Graff’s customers and brand equity.
Multi-channel enforcement
The solution monitors and enforces across all major digital environments where infringements occur, including:
- Social and video-sharing environments, where tutorials, credential leaks, and unauthorized access promotions frequently appear.
- Global marketplaces, where resellers advertise discounted or unauthorized access to the service.
- Websites, landing pages, and file-hosting services, which distribute cracked accounts, credential bundles, or downloadable content without permission.
Ongoing performance tracking
Monthly reports provide visibility into matches, enforcement rates, and domain-level insights. The latest six-month data shows a stable volume of 9–24K infringements per month and a consistent 90–94% success rate, highlighting the system’s long-term scalability.
Result
Through continuous automation and precision enforcement, the brand has removed over 114,000 infringements across more than 20 platforms, achieving a 94.3% enforcement success rate and maintaining over $450,000 in prevented economic impact.
Most importantly, the solution restored control over the brand’s digital ecosystem, reducing unauthorized account reselling and preserving the integrity of its subscription-based business model. With weekly validation and granular reporting, the in-house team now operates efficiently and confidently, focusing on growth while Red Points ensures their content stays protected.
