ONLINE ADVERTISING
millions of users. When advertising then becomes a revenue model, it’s very easy to start up a website with very little capital.”
Going it alone
IP owners should take the lead when tackling online IP infringement on these websites. When it comes to enforcing their IP, owners have to adopt an approach that adapts to each situation, says Viscounty. “Many IP owners are still contacting the websites directly and trying to get them to comply, but obviously they get frustrated because the websites oſt en don’t do anything or ignore them,” he explains.
Instead, issuing take down notices under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act can be “quite eff ective”, he says. “It’s inexpensive and effi cient to send take down notices—we do them every day. Some IP owners send screen shots of the infringing content to the advertisers directly, and request that they help get the infringing content taken down or stop advertising on the site.”
T is can be every eff ective because website owners do not want to lose their advertising revenue. Contacting advertising providers in combination with issuing take down notices is an eff ective strategy for tackling websites that infringe IP.
“We oſt en start with cease and desist letters and take down notices but we occasionally open a dialogue with advertising providers, particularly when the IP owner concerned is also a customer of the advertising provider. IP owners are oſt en huge advertisers,” says Viscounty.
“When trademark owners contact an advertising provider, they will oſt en say ‘not only have we sent a take down notice, but we are also a customer’. T us, IP owners can proceed not only through the legal department on the take down notice, but through the advertising department as well. Oſt en we reach a business resolution with the advertising department more quickly than we do with the legal department. T e advertising providers don’t want to make trademark owners unhappy.”
Another eff ective technique, says Viscounty, is contacting the advertisers directly. Making advertisers aware that their adverts are being displayed next to, or near, infringing content can make them blush. “T ey’re embarrassed by it,” explains Viscounty. “Whether it’s pornography, trademark or copyright infringement, or defamation, many of them will stop advertising on the site if the off ensive content is not taken down promptly.”
Nature of the beast
Advertising providers are aware of advertising- funded websites that infringe IP and they are
international operations trying to spread malware and spyware. We must remain vigilant because scammers will always try to fi nd new ways to abuse our systems. Given the number of searches on Google and the number of legitimate businesses who rely on this system to reach users, our work to remove bad ads must be precise and at scale.”
“WEBSITES THAT HOST PIRATED CONTENT ATTRACT HUGE NUMBERS OF USERS, AND IF THEY HOST THIRD PARTY ADVERTISING, THEY CAN MAKE MONEY WITHOUT SELLING THE CONTENT THEMSELVES.”
taking steps to remove them from their networks. Mike Zaneis, senior vice president and general counsel for trade association the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), which represents online publishers such as Microsoſt and Google, says that the IAB and its members “care deeply” about protecting IP rights.
“For advertising’s sake, content is still king,” he explains. “If there isn’t quality content available to consumers, then there won’t be the eyeballs and there won’t be the need for advertising. We know that pirates and counterfeiters don’t care about the quality of the content and the economic engine that creates that content. We really have to have a partnership with IP owners because it’s a symbiotic relationship that makes the digital space and ecosystem stronger, with the better content that’s out there.”
Online advertisers do seem to be making a stand against bad advertisers and websites. Online advertising provider Google, which declined to comment, recently issued a blog post on how it is making “ads better for everyone”. In the post, it said: “Like all other Internet companies, we’re fi ghting a war against a huge number of bad actors—from websites selling counterfeit goods and fraudulent tickets to underground
14 World Intellectual Property Review March/April 2012
Real-time advertising technology provider AppNexus recently launched an initiative that will crack down on IP-infringing websites that host advertising. AppNexus will actively monitor traffi c and refuse to allow clients to run ads on sites that are found to feature pirated IP. T e IAB and Microsoſt , which off ers similar advertising services to Google, have endorsed this initiative.
In a statement, AppNexus chief executive offi cer Brian O’Kelley said: “AppNexus maintains that advertising has a higher purpose as the lifeblood of the free Internet. It’s time for the advertising industry to take a strong stand and to stop putting money in the pockets of those facilitating piracy.”
Advertising providers use legal and technological mechanisms to ensure that the websites in their networks do not infringe the IP rights of others. Zaneis says that the advertising industry has invested time, eff ort and resources in making sure that they “are not helping criminals to profi t from their activity”.
“Advertising networks, especially the large ones, spend millions of dollars and devote lots of resources to basically fi ltering their network,” he says. “T ey enter into a fi nancial relationship and contractual agreement with a website, and in the contract it says that the website must accurately represent the content that it provides and that isn’t infringing material.
“T en they will also use technological means as well as real eyeballs to make sure the content is legitimate before the agreement is fi nalised and adverts are served into that site. So there is a legal instrument, in the contract that is signed, and then the operational mechanism to have real people actually reviewing the content, as well as a continuous monitoring programme that will scan for illegitimate content.”
The Internet is a brave new world that continues to test legal, technological and social norms. IP owners need to come to terms with this so they can protect and enforce their rights as effectively as possible, but others, including online advertising providers, are also playing their part, which is essential if online IP infringement is going to be reined in. ■
www.worldipreview.com
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