Category Archives: Ad Sponsored Piracy

ADWEEK : “Ad Industry Takes Major Step to Fight Online Piracy”… Again…

Stop me, oh uh, stop me, if you think you’ve heard this one before…

The advertising industry took a major step Thursday in fighting rogue websites that steal copyrighted material and sell counterfeit goods. To cut off the financial support that keeps rogue sites alive, the nation’s two major ad industry associations recommended agencies and marketers take steps to keep brands’ ads off those sites.

While the debate remains contentious, there has been universal agreement that the key to shutting down rogue websites was to cut off the money that keeps them alive.

Recognizing advertising was the first line of attack, GroupM last year became the first ad shop to adopt a comprehensive anti-piracy policy, compiling last summer an updatable black list of some 2,000 websites that are cut off from ads from blue-chip clients like Ford, AT&T, Unilever and Dell.

READ THE ABOVE FULL ARTICLE HERE AT ADWEEK:
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/ad-industry-takes-major-step-fight-online-piracy-140014

So the above is from May 2013… and here’s an insightful article below from the advertising trade publication CLICKZ.COM on April 18, 2011… Yes, 2011…

What is the purpose of me bringing this up? To raise awareness and perhaps ask publicly that those involved in this industry become better corporate citizens. If you are running one of those exchanges or networks and feel that it’s only a “transparency” issue, please consider that you are funding not only these websites but organized criminal organizations that run them.

This is not a victimless crime, but instead one that is affecting musicians, programmers, artists, designers – and businesses of all sizes.

As an industry, here are some suggestions of what we can do:

1. Ensure every network that you work with has a no-warez/piracy/torrent policy. Ask around about the networks that do support this. Even if they claim that your ads aren’t going on there, be aware that many of these networks aren’t honest.

2. Put pressure on exchanges that you work with to ensure no network that has this type of inventory is on that exchange. If a few agencies call the exchanges and make it clear they won’t buy media until they are assured these sites are completely off the exchange, then maybe those in charge will consider it a serious issue.

3. Refuse to pay networks that you discover violate this policy and show your advertisements on those sites. Make it clear that you find this behavior not only illegal, but unacceptable for your agency, network, or product.

YOU CAN READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE (FROM 2011) AT CLICKZ:
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2041366/advertising-networks-supporting-piracy

Accountability?
Responsibility?
Transparency?
Anyone?
Hello?

Why I Was Banned From Speaking At San Francisco Music Tech #SFMUSICTECH

this photo says it all

“This says It all”

I was supposed to speak at the SF Music Tech Summit Feb 19th 2013.   A few days before my scheduled appearance I received a call from  SF Music Tech and Fututre of Music Coalition co-founder Brian Zisk explaining that I would not be allowed to speak because I tweeted/blogged the above picture with the following caption “this says it all.”   Further he noted that “certain sponsors” would not “appreciate” me speaking at this event.

I love the hypocrisy of the Silicon Valley. They are all for free speech until they aren’t.

The fundamental American right is Free Speech. SF Music Tech (and Silicon Valley in general) do not really respect this right. Especially when it begins to interfere with their bottom line.

So what do you say we just end the charade? SF Music Tech Summit is biased against creators/musicians and their rights. It’s a pro-tech industry event.  It’s held in the Kabuki Hotel in San Francisco.  Because it is a giant Kabuki.

Three times a year  you find Tech Industry “entrepreneurs” who’ve never turned a profit “debate” un-elected artists rights advocates who as it turns out work for opaque 501C  foundations and organizations  that are funded by technology companies like Google.

If it’s not clear I’m talking about you, Future of Music Coalition and Cash Music.  Sorry guys/gals you had your chance to do the right thing and  speak out publicly against me being banned and you didn’t.  That makes you at best quislings and at worst shills.

SF Music Tech and Brian Zisk have every right to do whatever they want with their #SFMUSICTECH summit but I just ask them to stop pretending it reperesents anything other than the technologists that wish to exploit artists.

Have a good SF Music Tech.  I’ll be off touring the UK.

Lou Reed Exploited By American Express, AT&T, Chevorlet, Chili’s, Lysol, Pottery Barn, Vons, Domino’s Pizza, Netflix, Galaxy Nexus and Ron Jeremy!

Here we go again… We can go to Google and within minutes search for an artist of stature such as Lou Reed and quickly find unlicensed and infringing internet businesses exploiting his life’s work illegally while paying the him nothing, zero, zilch, nadda, zippo.

There are many disappointing things about all of this, but the first is that when doing a simple Google search for “Lou Reed Mp3″ the first five returns are for illegally operating and infringing sites.

This doesn’t count YouTube which may or may not be infringing, and may or may not actually be paying Lou from the advertising revenue (on this video, in the screen shots below for example). This is all the more troubling because we know that this can be easily filtered if there is the will to do so.

Perhaps most disappointing however is that major companies like American Express, AT&T Chevorlet, Chili’s, Lysol, Pottery Barn, Vons, Domino’s Pizza, Netflix and Galaxy Nexus are still supporting the this exploitation of artists with corporate advertising dollars. These companies not only supply the funding for these sites exploiting artists to exist, but perhaps even worse they add legitimacy to music piracy by lending their brand identity to it.

Clearly there is a lot of money being made in the distribution of music on the internet. Sadly not much of that money (or in this case NONE of it) is being distributed (or uhm, “shared”) with the artists themselves.

In any value chain where the artists work is being distributed and/or exploited for profit, the artist should be included in that value chain.

LouReedGoogleSearch

LouReedAMEX

LouReedATT

LouReedCHEVY LouReedCHILI'S LouReedLYSOL

LouReedPOTTERYBARN

LouReedGalaxyNexus

LouReedDOMINOS

LouReedNETFLIX

Not only do we see the major companies supporting these sites but there’s also the scam ads, rip offs and bogus services. And here’s where it gets even uglier…on sites like The Pirate Bay the work of Lou Reed is promoting adult (escort services?) and porn products like the one offered by Ron Jeremy below.

LouReedTPBPORN

Let us not forget that the above examples represent a drop in the ocean of the over 200,000 infringing sites that Google alone is tracking.

See more Corporate Advertising Funded Exploitation of Artists:
Tom Waits * Neil Young * Aimee Mann * Neko Case * U2 * Ben Gibbard/Death Cab For Cutie * East Bay Ray / Dead Kennedy’s * Billy Corgan/Smashing Pumpkins

Look who’s Pirating now! University Of Georgia Music Business Program’s Preliminary Study Of Advertising On Copyright Infringing Sites.

Jonathan Taplin at  USC’s  Annenberg Center has spent the last few month studying which parts of the online advertising ecosystem are delivering advertising (and hence revenue) to unlicensed music sharing and streaming sites.   His study has caused quite a stir in the advertising and entertainment industry.  Jonathan recently asked me to corroborate some of his findings regarding which brands are advertising on these websites. These are  the results of my preliminary survey.

Over two weeks in April  I had a group of students at UGA note which “brands” were advertising on a small set of sites that stream and distribute my own music without permission or compensation.  I chose sites that featured my own music for a very specific reason:  I could be 100% certain that they were exploiting my material without permission and were hence illegitimate sites.  Third party sources agree with my assessment. For instance The Google Transparency Report has all but 1 of these sites  in the top 200 recipients of DMCA takedown notices.

The purpose of the preliminary study  is not to identify how these advertisements end up on these infringing sites, but simply which brands are appearing on these sites.  We realize that brands often do not realize that their ads are appearing on these sites.   We hope this information is useful to advertisers, advertising agencies and the entertainment industry.  We believe along with artists the brands are also victimized by this practice because they are not geting the quality advertising for which they’ve contracted. And often their ads  appear next to unseemly videos and ads for adult and fetish sites thus damaging the image and reputation of the brands.  We encourage the listed brands to conduct audits of those responsible for placing these ads.  If it’s not possible for those responsible  to comply with an audit demand you should be aware that it is then highly likely that your ads will continue appearing on these sites!

Below I’ve listed the brands in two orders.  The first lists the brands by frequency, adjusted by a “breadth” coefficient. I will explain this breadth coefficient in subsequent post, but because of the way advertisers “track” web users,  the sheer number of a brand’s ads on a website can be somewhat misleading.   For instance ads for the apartment complex “River One” seemed to follow a single student the entire two weeks, but none of the other students recorded an ad from this company. This does not mean that “River One” isn’t in fact funding sites that exploit artists without compensation, it’s just a number of factors could be distorting their overall rankings.  Hence the breadth adjustment to dampen some of these effects.

In the following days  I’ll publish my rather simple  methodology and links to raw data.  Items that expose students identity will be redacted.

University Of Georgia Music Business Program Top 40 Brands Advertising On File Infringing Sites- Preliminary Survey (Breadth Adjustment):

Based on sample of 1,851 pageviews.

April 10-26 2013

rank Top Advertisers instances % “breadth” frequency adj for breadth
1 Country Financial 157 8.5% 100.00% 8.48%
2 Become.com 89 4.8% 100.00% 4.81%
3 AT&T 60 3.2% 100.00% 3.24%
4 Champion roofing 51 2.8% 100.00% 2.76%
5 State Farm 47 2.5% 75.00% 1.90%
6 Target 39 2.1% 87.50% 1.84%
7 Georgia Natural Gas 31 1.7% 100.00% 1.67%
8 AAA 29 1.6% 87.50% 1.37%
9 Rooms To Go 33 1.8% 62.50% 1.11%
10 Allstate 20 1.1% 100.00% 1.08%
11 Transunion 24 24 1.3% 75.00% 0.97%
12 H&R Block 18 1.0% 75.00% 0.73%
13 Pirate storm 26 1.4% 50.00% 0.70%
14 Quibids.com 13 0.7% 100.00% 0.70%
15 Coca-Cola/American Idol 16 0.9% 75.00% 0.65%
16 The New York Times 16 0.9% 75.00% 0.65%
17 One River Place (Atlanta GA) 94 5.1% 12.50% 0.63%
18 Progressive insurance 22 1.2% 50.00% 0.59%
19 Xfinity 15 0.8% 62.50% 0.51%
20 Nationwide 15 0.8% 50.00% 0.41%
21 Suntrust 14 0.8% 50.00% 0.38%
22 The Gold Coast Casino 11 0.6% 62.50% 0.37%
23 Norton 9 0.5% 62.50% 0.30%
24 Just fab boots 14 0.8% 37.50% 0.28%
25 Wartune 10 0.5% 50.00% 0.27%
26 Bing 5 0.3% 100.00% 0.27%
27 Dominos 15 0.8% 25.00% 0.20%
28 Karaolke Pink 28 1.5% 12.50% 0.19%
29 Charter 7 0.4% 50.00% 0.19%
30 Google chrome 12 0.6% 25.00% 0.16%
31 Sea World Busch Gardens 6 0.3% 50.00% 0.16%
32 Victoria’s Secret 11 0.6% 25.00% 0.15%
33 Royal Carribean 11 0.6% 25.00% 0.15%
34 Publix 7 0.4% 37.50% 0.14%
35 Dodge dart 20 1.1% 12.50% 0.14%
36 Bodies The Exhibtion 10 0.5% 25.00% 0.14%
37 The Heist 16 0.9% 12.50% 0.11%
38 HTC 5 0.3% 37.50% 0.10%
39 Pull-ups 5 0.3% 37.50% 0.10%
40 Spirit Airlines 5 0.3% 37.50% 0.10%

Unadjusted for “breadth.”

rank Top Advertisers instances % “breadth” frequency adj for breadth
1 Country Financial 157 8.5% 100.00% 8.48%
2 One River Place (Atlanta GA) 94 5.1% 12.50% 0.63%
3 Become.com 89 4.8% 100.00% 4.81%
4 AT&T 60 3.2% 100.00% 3.24%
5 Champion roofing 51 2.8% 100.00% 2.76%
6 State Farm 47 2.5% 75.00% 1.90%
7 Target 39 2.1% 87.50% 1.84%
8 Rooms To Go 33 1.8% 62.50% 1.11%
9 Georgia Natural Gas 31 1.7% 100.00% 1.67%
10 AAA 29 1.6% 87.50% 1.37%
11 Karaolke Pink 28 1.5% 12.50% 0.19%
12 Pirate storm 26 1.4% 50.00% 0.70%
13 Transunion 24 24 1.3% 75.00% 0.97%
14 Progressive insurance 22 1.2% 50.00% 0.59%
15 Allstate 20 1.1% 100.00% 1.08%
16 Dodge dart 20 1.1% 12.50% 0.14%
17 H&R Block 18 1.0% 75.00% 0.73%
18 Coca-Cola/American Idol 16 0.9% 75.00% 0.65%
19 The New York Times 16 0.9% 75.00% 0.65%
20 The Heist 16 0.9% 12.50% 0.11%
21 Xfinity 15 0.8% 62.50% 0.51%
22 Nationwide 15 0.8% 50.00% 0.41%
23 Dominos 15 0.8% 25.00% 0.20%
24 Suntrust 14 0.8% 50.00% 0.38%
25 Just fab boots 14 0.8% 37.50% 0.28%
26 Quibids.com 13 0.7% 100.00% 0.70%
27 Google chrome 12 0.6% 25.00% 0.16%
28 lowermybills.com 12 0.6% 12.50% 0.08%
29 The Gold Coast Casino 11 0.6% 62.50% 0.37%
30 Victoria’s Secret 11 0.6% 25.00% 0.15%
31 Royal Carribean 11 0.6% 25.00% 0.15%
32 Wartune 10 0.5% 50.00% 0.27%
33 Bodies The Exhibtion 10 0.5% 25.00% 0.14%
34 Norton 9 0.5% 62.50% 0.30%
35 Colorado tech 8 0.4% 12.50% 0.05%
36 Charter 7 0.4% 50.00% 0.19%
37 Publix 7 0.4% 37.50% 0.14%
38 Bruno Mars 7 0.4% 12.50% 0.05%
39 Sea World Busch Gardens 6 0.3% 50.00% 0.16%
40 Alzhiemer association 6 0.3% 25.00% 0.08%

IsoHunt Court Ruling Notes “Ad Sponsored Piracy”: Exploitation is not Innovation

The 9th Circuit delivers a substantial win for creators in its IsoHunt ruling, as The Copyright Alliance notes in it’s summary which quotes this from the court directly,

“Fung promoted advertising by pointing to infringing activity; obtained advertising revenue that depended on the number of visitors to his sites; attracted primarily visitors who were seeking to engage in infringing activity, as that is mostly what occurred on his sites; and encouraged that infringing activity. Given this confluence of circumstances, Fung’s revenue stream was tied directly to the infringing activity involving his websites, both as to his ability to attract advertisers and as to the amount of revenue he received.”

It would appear that the motives of these for profit businesses are being seen for what they are, nothing more than than the blatant exploitation of artists and creators. It should be recognized that this practice is not unknown within the online advertising/tech business either, as reported by Jack Marshall’s post titled “Why is Ad Tech Still Funding Piracy?” in DigiDay,

Visit the top torrent search engines, and you’ll find ad calls from Yahoo, Google, Turn, Zedo, RocketFuel, AdRoll, CPX Interactive and others. These sites exist to connect people with illegal downloads of intellectual property, a practice that’s estimated to cost the U.S. economy $20 billion in the movie industry alone. No matter your feelings about U.S. copyright laws, they are laws, and there’s no doubt these sites facilitate illegal behavior, even if they don’t house the content themselves. The oxygen that sustains many of these sites is advertising, delivered by the vast archipelago of the ad tech industry.

According to AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley, it’s an easy problem to fix, but ad companies are attracted by the revenue torrent sites can generate for them. Kelley said his company refuses to serve ads to torrent sites and other sites facilitating the distribution of pirated content. It’s easy to do technically, he said, but others refuse to do it.

“We want everyone to technically stop their customers from advertising on these sites, but there’s a financial incentive to keep doing so,” he said. “Companies that aren’t taking a stand against this are making a lot of money.”

If you want to see more examples of Ad Sponsored Piracy in action, see our post, “Over 50 Major Brands Supporting Music Piracy, It’s Big Business!” Mainstream awareness of the subject has been growing due in part  by the work being done by the Annenberg Innovation Lab which has been reported in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times earlier this year. And The Wall Street Journal also reported on the role of advertising in its reporting of wider ranging issues facing creators battling online piracy,

Another focus is online-ad networks, which media companies say help finance piracy by placing ads on sites that traffic in unauthorized content. A study last summer, commissioned in part by Google, found that 86% of peer-to-peer sharing sites are dependent on advertising for income.

As more awareness builds, the truth becomes plain to see and painfully obvious. Unfortunately there are still those in the tech blogosphere who like to defend businesses exploiting artists and claiming that this is a non-issue making statements like, “internet display ads pay next to nothing.” This remark seems to be a direct contradiction with the statement by the very knowledgeable AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley, who above stated, “Companies that aren’t taking a stand against this are making a lot of money.”

Bottom Line: Exploitation is not Innovation.