UK’s crack down on pirate sites deemed a success

A UK police operation to halt advertising on piracy sites has been hailed as a “major success” by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit.

Operation Creative, which was launched in 2013, has led to a 73% drop in advertising from the UK’s ‘top ad spending companies’ on copyright infringing websites.

Multiple platforms offering pirated music, films, TV shows and books have been starved of funding from automotive, real estate and food sectors. Ad funding was previously a main profit generator for illegal sites, with the Digital Citizens Alliance estimating in 2013 that piracy websites generated US $227million from advertising per year.

Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe, UK’s intellectual property minister, said she was “delighted” that the PIPCU was taking control of online crime.

“The Government takes copyright infringement extremely seriously – it hurts businesses, consumers and the wider economy,” she said.

“The results of Operation Creative show what can be achieved when enforcement agencies, industry and government work together,” Neville-Rolfe added. “I am delighted PIPCU are clamping down in advertising of tings like pop music and gambling on copyright infringing sites – protecting our industry and consumers from online crime.”

Working together with advertising agencies, industry bodies and music rights-holders, Operation Creative seeks to ‘disrupt ad revenue’ on all sites listed on PIPCU’s Infringing Website List (IWL).

The IWL is an online portal which the creative industry refer to, to ensure that advertising does not appear on those sites. The list is evidenced and verified by PIPCU.

Earlier this year, the Gambling Commission also joined the Operation Creative initiative.

“Working closely with rights holders and the advertising industry, PIPCU has been able to lead the way with tackling copyright infringing sites by successfully disrupting advertising revenue,” said Chief Inspector Peter Ratcliffe, Head of PIPCU.

“Not only do the public need to be aware that these websites are not safe places to visit as they often contain malware and viruses, but the criminals behind these sites are making substantial sums of money from advertising, and inadvertently brands and advertisers are funding this online crime.”

Last June, the Australian senate passed the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015, which allows copyright holders to block copyright-infringing sites.

Vanessa Hutley, General Manager of Music Rights Australia, had welcomed the new law at the time.

“Section 115Agives the creative community an effective tool to disrupt illegal off shoresites which make millions of dollars from advertising, but give nothing back to the artists whose work they systematically exploit on a massive scale,” she said.

However, a study conducted last month by the Department of Communications found that Australia had much higher levels of copyright infringement than the UK.

Labour MP Ed Husic said that while the government has been tough on piracy, it has not done enough to stem the causes of piracy.

“It’s been shown repeatedly that Australian consumers are willing to pay for products offered at a reasonable price and in a timely fashion. Music streaming giant Spotify boasts that solely bringing its service to Australia reduced music piracy by 20 per cent.

“Spotify’s independent research shows that 55 per cent of people aged 18-29 pirate less when offered streaming choices. Netflix is predicted to have the same impact on video content. Until this government and business gets tough on the causes of piracy, it’s hard to see a long term, sustained reduction in piracy.”