Many brands and ad companies do not fully understand what an IP infringing website is and lack the tools to correctly assess websites for IP infringement risk.

Intellectual property (IP) infringing websites distribute unauthorised and sometimes illegally copied digital content. Colloquially known as pirate websites, they allow users to download or stream a variety of digital content through illegitimate distributors, often for free by relying on advertising revenue.

Any type of digital content that can be found through legitimate licensed means can also be found on IP infringing websites. Pirate websites can broadly be categorised into three different types: hosting, linking, and BitTorrent websites.

Types of IP infringing websites

Hosting websites act as storage servers that permit users to upload and store media files in the cloud. Once a media file is uploaded, a user can generate a link to access that file again, either themselves or for others to use the link to obtain the content.

Linking websites aggregate links to media content that is stored on hosting websites. They often categorise links by content type and then offer search facilities and suggestions, so users can quickly find content.BitTorrent websites enable specific peer-to-peer (also known as P2P) file transfers over the Internet.

Unlike hosting websites where one user uploads content to the cloud for others to download, P2P file transfers allow users to upload and download content simultaneously, sharing pieces of file data back and forth with each other until everyone has completed downloading the files they want.

Smart technology is needed to assess websites for IP infringement risk

The volume of IP infringing websites and complexity of the digital advertising ecosystem presents a risk to brands and advertisers: how can you be sure that your advertising or traffic is not being served to pirate websites without assessing each publisher for IP infringement risk?

Thousands of new pirate domains appear every day as new platforms emerge and others hop domain names to avoid detection from law enforcement and rights-holders. Without the use of smart technology, it is impossible to keep up with the dynamism of the digital piracy ecosystem and score all potentially infringing websites for IP infringement risk.

White Bullet’s IPI Index™ gives brands and ad companies complete protection from IP infringing websites

White Bullet’s IPI Index™ uses machine learning to score millions of URLs for IP infringement risk daily.The IPI Index™ looks at over 400 dynamic data points on each website, enabling White Bullet’s proprietary algorithm - developed by IP and ad industry experts - to score every website for IP infringement risk to a global standard.

The intelligence gathered by the IPI Index™ can be used by brands and advertising companies in several ways to ensure complete digital ad protection against IP infringing websites.

White Bullet’s IPI Risk Profiling solutions give advertising companies the ability to verify domains for IP infringement risk before ad bidding. The IPI Watchlist solution enables advertising companies to create their own dynamic watchlists of high risk domains, and the IPI Scoring solution in addition allows ad companies to assess their own inventories for IP infringement risk.

Any website that is scored as high risk by the IPI Index™ is monitored for advertising. White Bullet’s IPI Brand Monitoring solutions alert brands if their advertising is found on high risk IP infringing domains.

The IPI Index™ captures screenshots of the webpage and harvests intermediary data that can pinpoint the advertising companies responsible for misplacing the ad, providing the transparency needed to take action and ensure the safety of each brand’s reputation.

White Bullet’s IPI Brand Alert provides basic protection, tracking one brand and issuing monthly data reports. White Bullet’s IPI Brand Protect provides deeper brand protection, tracking up to 10 brands and issue weekly data reports. Monthly impact reports are also issued which track progress over time and compares your data to anonymised competitors.

Contact White Bullet today to make use of our market leading intelligence.