Microsoft knows how to ID people who repeatedly share pirated content

The company has been awarded a patent for a technique it created that allows it to identify who is sharing pirated content using cloud services and punish them if need be. The technique involves fingerprinting the shared file so they can be tracked back to the original sharer, reports TorrentFreak. If one individual is seen to be sharing a large amount of pirated content, their account could be prohibited from hosting or sharing files in the future.