How we work with the European Union
19 December 2019
Damien Bidmead
90% of IP infringing services rely on some form of ad revenue to exist, with some individual operators making millions of dollars in ad revenue annually.
Our Client
The European Commission is the independent executive branch of the European Union. White Bullet works with the European Commission’s DG Grow department which, amongst other responsibilities, is tasked with generating policy on the protection and enforcement of IPRs in the European Union.
The Challenge
To monitor the effectiveness of the 2018 MoU on online advertising and intellectual property rights IPRs facilitated by the European Commission as part of their “follow the money” IPR enforcement policy.
The MoU is a voluntary agreement between stakeholders in the advertising and creative industries to minimise the placement of digital advertising on IP infringing websites.
To measure the effectiveness of the MoU, smart and scalable technology is required to identify the top IP infringing websites in the European market and provide dynamic and sophisticated data on their advertising profiles.
The Challenge Continued
Digital IP infringement causes the creative industries to lose billions of dollars in revenue and provides the operators of IP infringing services with a market where they can prosper through digital advertising revenue.
Traditional IPR enforcement solutions, such as targeting individual IP infringing services or consumers, are too narrow and slow to address this commercial profiteering through digital advertising.
This has led many organisations – such as the European Commission – to adopt the “follow the money” approach to IPR enforcement through initiatives such as the 2018 MoU. This approach focusses on demonetising digital IP infringement by cutting off the primary source of income – advertising revenue.
90% of IP infringing services rely on some form of ad revenue to exist, with some individual operators making millions of dollars in ad revenue annually.
To monitor the effectiveness of the MoU, next-generation technology is required to identify the vast and ever-changing pool of IP infringing services available and to detect the types of ads funding these services to identify key trends in the advertising landscape.
The Solution
White Bullet's proprietary solution identifies, scores and monitors IP infringing services and the advertising supporting them.
Our IPI Index is a vast global database of actionable intelligence including millions of URLs visited and tracked daily. By staying on top of the fast-evolving landscape, accounting for redirects, domain hopping and mirroring our technology addresses the dynamism of digital IP infringement.
White Bullet’s intelligent and scalable ad harvesting software classifies ads with a brand name, industry sector and ad type. Data is accessible through our analytics tool or via our API, providing clients with the ability to identify key trends overtime, pull landscape reports and better inform policy.
White Bullet also provides expert and professional advice and guidance in tandem with advertising data, enabling clients to better understand the position of ad-funded digital IP infringement and what it means for future policy and industry-level best practices.
Get started with IPIP
Collect all your data for unified prevention, detection, and response to digital piracy.
White Bullet has helped over 3,000 brands to avoid funding digital piracy.
With over a billion dollars of ad spend funding IP infringement in 2020, it's time to work with us to stop pirates from using advertising to profit from distributing intellectual property.
Analysis of White Bullet’s demonetisation programmes reveals that 5bn ad impressions were blocked from piracy websites in 2021
The publication is now available to view on the European Commission’s website London, UK 5th August 2021: A large-scale study of the impact of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on online advertising and intellectual property rights on the online advertising market has now been published by the European Commission.
Amazon, Facebook, and Google are Among Recognizable Brands Funding Piracy Websites and Apps
Campaign aims to raise awareness of the dangers of online piracy after research shows a majority of the pirate websites pose considerable risks
IP protection company White Bullet and The European Lotteries (EL), announce a collaboration to help fight ad-funded piracy.
The cybersecurity and IP protection company and the contextual outcomes engine join forces to deliver brand-safe advertising at scale
Leading IP protection company White Bullet to enable advertisers to enjoy cutting-edge contextual targeting whilst continuing to deliver brand safe solution
As a WIPO ALERT member, we are delighted to support this initiative to help defund online piracy,” says Peter Szyszko, Founder and CEO, White Bullet. “WIPO plays an important role by providing a policy forum to shape international IP rules for a changing world, as well as technical infrastructure to connect IP systems and share knowledge, to enable all countries to use IP for economic, social and cultural development.
Crime pays, but it does so with money that, in the proper hands, could have done a lot of good. We might never entirely stop it, but we can all stop supporting it, and some of us will keep on doing our best to fight it.
On behalf of broadcasters, we can tackle a real-time pirate event on two fronts, through a strategy of demonetization and de-indexing that uses all the intelligence we pick up from watching the pirates come and go.
