James Delahunty
7 Apr 2014 10:55
The Intellectual Crime Property Unit of the City of London police will be targeting users of piracy sites with adverts of their own.
An infringing website list (IWL) has already been created by the police force. The first step is to contact the owner or operators of the site and encourage them to voluntarily change their practices. If that fails, the police target the revenue sources by contacting 60 brands, agencies and advertising technology businesses with instruction to cut them off.
The idea of starving piracy sites of revenue is not a new idea at all, but it is intriguing that police intend to ad their own messages to the sites for users to read. How they intend to do this is unknown, but it will be interesting to witness.
"Together we have created a process that first and foremost encourages offenders to change their behaviour so they are operating within the law," said DCI Andy Fyfe, head of the PIPCU.
"However, if they refuse to comply we now have the means to persuade businesses to move their advertising to different platforms and, if offending continues, for registrars to suspend the websites."
Sources and Recommended Reading:
Police crack down on Game of Thrones illegal downloads: www.bbc.co.uk