First scalps in online ad crackdown

City of London Police has suspended 40 websites in the first phase of a major clampdown against pirate sites, which is being backed by UK advertising industry bodies the ISBA, the IPA and the IAB.
Dubbed Operation Creative, the crackdown targets sites which provide unauthorised access to copyrighted content, many of the which generate substantial revenues from advertising. It is also designed to protect advertisers from inadvertently appearing on such sites.
The City Police’s new Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) worked with ad trade as well as rights holder bodies including Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT)  to draw up a list of 61 pirate sites, both in the UK and abroad.
Once illegal activity was confirmed by analysts from the City of London Police, a formal ‘prevention and deterrent’ process began to encourage infringing websites to engage with the police, to correct their behaviour and to begin to operate legitimately.
Details of those failing to respond to this approach were then passed to a group of 60 brands, agencies and advertising technology businesses with a request to stop advertising on these websites.
The next phase of Operation Creative targeted the websites that persisted in offending. PIPCU sent out formal letters to domain name registrars explaining that they were hosting websites facilitating criminal copyright infringement under UK law as well as potentially breaching their terms and conditions. Registrars were then requested to suspend these websites until further notice. These sites are now under an ongoing review by PIPCU officers.
ISBA marketing services manager David Ellison said: “The vast sums brands invest in their online advertising can easily be eclipsed by the damage that can be done to a brand’s reputation by one misplaced ad. Initiative Operation Creative helps to protect advertisers by ensuring that their ads don’t appear on illegal, IP infringing websites, thereby starving these sites of revenue advertisers unwittingly provide. The pilot scheme proves that this project can make a difference.”
IAB chief executive Guy Phillipson added: “We welcome the Operation Creative pilot as a major step in understanding how the advertising industry can assist in tackling the issue of advertising appearing against sites under investigation by police for copyright infringement. This unprecedented collaboration with PIPCU across rights holders and the digital advertising industry will help us as we continue to work towards protecting brand reputations within digital environments.”