Intellectual property protections at home and abroad are incredibly important to continued innovation, economic growth, and prosperity. This is why we fight to raise awareness about the problem and call attention to successes when we see them.
One of the most effective methods in addressing this issue – particularly in the area of piracy – is the implementation of voluntary initiatives undertaken by the private sector to cut off the flow of web traffic and financial resources to illegitimate websites trafficking in stolen content. These initiatives have been extremely successful so far, and have the added benefit of being effective without involving burdensome government regulation and oversight.
Most recently, Group M – a global investment management company – announced that it would require all of its media partners toreceive anti-piracy certificationfrom the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG). This move is intended to cut off ad-supported Internet piracy by improving advertising companies’ abilities to weed out undesirable and illegitimate websites from their automated ad buys.
According to the Digital Citizens’ Alliance, in 2014 alone, pirated content websitesmade more than $227 millionfrom ad revenue. This program, and Group M’s participation – should significantly curtail these financial benefits.
Mike Zaneis, CEO of TAG, indicated this is a huge step forward in thefight against piracy saying,“It is very gratifying to have the world’s largest media buyer commit to the TAG program for itself and its partners. Major marketers want to protect their brands from being placed on sites that are associated with criminal activity. TAG is building the trusted marketplace for buying and selling inventory in the digital supply chain.”
We are pleased with this progress as well and thank Group M – and other private sector partners – who are working to combat piracy and intellectual property theft. If you’d like to thank Group M for their commitment to this cause, you can do so byclicking hereand sending them a note.
Together, citizens and the private sector can work to end intellectual property theft and the threat it poses to continued innovation and economic growth.
Voluntary Initiatives to Combat IP Theft Are Working
