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Meet the Ukie team: Mo Ali

What do you do at Ukie?

Help  members protect their Intellectual Property which means stopping people sharing games or the in game content without permission.  The core service I manage is a web crawler that identifies infringing illegal links on download and torrent sites.  The files make available the games and despite some thinking this is harmless the truth is the people offering the links are making money and none of it goes back to the developer.  

Members will reach out when they have specific issues from clone apps to counterfeit merchandise.  Having worked in the anti-piracy sector for nearly two decades I use that experience to solve a problem, be it shutting down a website, removing a marketplace listing or disabling the payment service on the website.  It would be great to stop or shut everything down but sometimes the patient approach is required so disruption tactics are often used with the long term plan in mind.

In the last five year we have removed over 2 million links, shut down 50 websites and removed countless scam/hack videos and marketplace listings.  So making a difference is what I try to do at Ukie by helping members protect their hard work and stop people making money (without earning it!).

What made you want to work in the games industry?

From a young age I have always liked playing games and been interested in technology which is why I did a Computing In Business degree many, many years ago.  I fell into anti-piracy but found out very early that there are a lot of dedicated people working very hard to create new IP (games, music, films etc.) 

Before joining Ukie I worked for a music trade association learning the important role an industry group plays in helping its members protect their IP locally and worldwide.  Being able to present to governments and platforms high volumes of data to show the scale of a problem works much better than an individual company trying to sell it’s own story.  When the opportunity came along to work for Ukie it was a chance to work with technology driven companies and work on new challenges as the bad guys find new ways to make money from games.

What are you playing at the moment?

Nothing as the kids have taken control of the consoles but will fight them for the controller when Gran Turismo 7 is released!  When I was able to play it was mainly PES or FIFA depending on who I was playing against.  Not a big fan of playing online so prefer to my with friends and family so it can get competitive which is problem another reason why we don’t play too often, if you win you want to milk it for as long as possible.

What do you do in your spare time, apart from playing games?

Like running as I find it helps clear my mind and gives me time to think so visit the gym five days a week.  Massive football fan so most weekends try to watch as many games as possible especially Serie A from Italy.  Sundays are spent coaching my son’s football team which can be stressful as hoarding young kids and getting them to listen is much harder than taking down websites or getting social media platforms to listen!

I say I like to cook but only know how to cook four or five dishes so maybe should expand the menu… but then again stick to what you nothing wrong being consistent.