In a February 17, 2015 post, we applauded a new voluntary program developed by advertising trade associations, the Brand Integrity Program Against Piracy. The program’s goal is to deter the placement of advertisements for legitimate products on websites that help disseminate illegally-copied entertainment content or knockoffs of trademarked products.
This voluntary property-rights protection effort received a considerable boost last week when GroupM, the investment management arm of global media and advertising services giant WPP, formally endorsed the Brand Integrity Program. GroupM’s digital marketing and media partners handle over 32% of the world’s media billings.
As explained in our February post, a trade association-created entity, the Trustworthy Accounting Group (TAG), initiated a program to certify companies that assist advertisers and ad agencies to avoid ad placement on cyberlockers and other undesirable websites. Third-party accounting entities such as Ernst & Young will assess those wishing to be certified. If these companies meet certain effectiveness criteria, TAG will validate them as “Digital Advertising Assurance Providers” (DAAPs).
GroupM is requiring that its partners either be certified as DAAPs or contract with companies that have earned that certification. The joint GroupM-TAG press release explained that TAG will announce the first validated DAAPs before the end of 2015, and that GroupM’s partners must be validated as or hire a DAAP by the end of March 2016.
Online copyright and trademark infringement is a multi-billion-dollar problem for economically critical U.S. businesses. The pursuit of rogue businesses through civil or criminal law enforcement has expanded in recent years, but pirate sites and their creators are quite elusive and the legal process is slow. For instance, it’s been four years since New Zealand officials arrested Megaupload founder Kim Dotcomm, and a decision has yet to be made on his extradition to the U.S.
Voluntary efforts to undermine the revenue stream for cyberlockers and other trafficking sites, therefore, are a critically important weapon against online piracy. TAG’s enlistment of GroupM and its partners is a positive development, one that could accelerate the recruitment of more partners for the Brand Integrity Program Against Piracy.