The City of London’s new Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PICPU) has suspended 40 websites following the first phase of a UK pilot aimed at tackling pirate sites and the advertising revenue they generate.
In all, 62 sites were identified as displaying unauthorised material and were asked to “correct their behaviour” and operate legitimately. Details of those that did not were passed to brand owners with a request to stop advertising on the sites in an attempt to reduce their revenue.
The pilot, which lasted three months, was a partnership between PICPU, advertising bodies and representatives of the music and publishing industries set up to tackle internet-based crime.
Initially PICPU contacted websites displaying copyright material without consent and asked them to remove it. If they continued to ignore the warnings, their details were passed on to domain name registrars explaining that they were “facilitating copyright infringement under UK law”.
Unfortunately, while the approach to brand owners brought about a 12 per cent decline in the number of adverts on the sites, there was a 39 per cent increase in adverts that led users to explicit content or exposed users to malware, as the websites tried to replace the advertising from the brands.
The operation has been welcomed by the creative industries, which believe it is vital to disrupt funding to illegal websites, as they expose consumers to scams and malware, deny creators their living, and harm brands by associating them with illegal and unsafe content.
So far none of the names of the sites or advertisers that have been affected have been published but a spokeswoman for PICPU said that the unit will now look to push forward with the next phase of the crackdown.
This will involve the launch of a platform in the New Year in which all advertisers and anyone involved in the digital advertising ecosystem can access the register.