The City of London Police have started putting banner ads over sites they believe are offering copyright infringing content.
The City of London police has started placing banner advertisements on websites believed to be offering pirated content illegally.
The messages, which will appear instead of paid-for ads, will ask users to close their web browsers.
The move comes as part of a continuing effort to stop piracy sites from earning money through advertising.
Police said the ads would make it harder for piracy site owners to make their pages look authentic.
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City of London Police Placing Banner Adverts on Pirate Sites
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(Score: 2) by d on Tuesday July 29 2014, @01:47PM
Do they also affect SSL content?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29 2014, @01:56PM
Probably yes.
It looks like they're not intercepting the connections, fortunately. I believe they're just buying ad space from wholesalers which allow targeting sites by category. These wholesalers exist because most advertisers want their ads NOT to appear on thepiratebay.se, but the City of London Police apparently chose the opposite.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Tramii on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:03PM
If this is true and they are purposely buying ads on "pirate" websites, doesn't that mean the UK government is essentially helping to fund these "bad" websites?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Adamsjas on Tuesday July 29 2014, @05:56PM
If it were the UK government, it might be ok.
But why is a CITY police force focusing on this? Are there no parking violations, street crime, drug sales, muggings, where their time and money would be better spent?
Not sure how they fund police forces in the UK, but I wouldn't want my local cops spending a dime on such things out of my local taxes.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday July 29 2014, @08:32PM
Look up "City of London Police" (Note that the "City of London" is not the city of London.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday July 29 2014, @11:23PM
But doesn't that make his point even stronger?
Why is this tiny police force for a tiny area of London pursuing national issues?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by tomtomtom on Wednesday July 30 2014, @11:50AM
Simply put, they are involved because we don't have a national police force (well Scotland now does but that's very recent; this is also ignoring other semi-police units like the National Crime Agency).
Over time, the local forces divided up "specialist" matters between them for one force or another to lead on because the expertise wasn't worth duplicating many times over. The City of London had the "best" history of investigating complex fraud as a result of being involved in a lot of financial crime investigations (legitimately within their geographic remit). This later expanded out into "economic crime" which is where this fits in. They were also e.g. the lead force investigating horse-race fixing allegations in the past despite no horse racing going on within the square mile.
This is not some nasty conspiracy by shadowy financial powers as you often see suggested - it's just an artefact of the history of policing in the UK. And I'd say it's very likely being done with the encouragement and probably outright funding of central government which is who should really be taking the blame here.
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Tuesday July 29 2014, @10:13PM
The area covered by the City of London police is essentially the financial district. About 7000 residents but 300,000 people commute to it.
(Score: 4, Informative) by azrael on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:06PM
Rather the advertising placement company will have a zero-rate impression/click clause in contracts for certain things. They'll then put thise PIPCU notices through under that.
So no pay for the notice, and it replaces an advert so dries up funding too.
How does your 'illegal' site get on the list? Not through a judicial process where you get to argue your case. How do you get off the list?
This is PIPCU just acting for their corporate paymasters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:32PM
By using another advertiser?
(Score: 1) by azrael on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:39PM
This goes hand-in-hand with trying to shame other companies to not have adverts for them placed on 'illegal' websites.
If you have to, prove a site is illegal and take it offline - don't bypass due legal process!!
(Score: 2) by azrael on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:43PM
customers should abandon those advertising agencies that are getting manipulated and switch to one that puts customer requirements first
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mcgrew on Tuesday July 29 2014, @04:34PM
There is no "copyright industry," there is the film industry, music industry, book industry, newspaper industry, web site industry, etc. I hold four registered copyrights myself, but my two registered books and two registered computer programs (those two copyrights should have expired long ago but will be in effect long after I'm dead), but I'm part of no "copyright industry" and in fact encourage people to share my work, so long as it's noncommercial use. I've put my own works on TPB.
Rather, you should say M.A.F.I.A.A. The BSA is part of the MAFIAA.
And of course advertisers are going to bow to them; they make a hell of a lot of money advertising MAFIAA films and music. It would be stupid of them to anger the MAFIAA; it would cost them dearly. Do you really think any corporation has morals or ethics or sense of fairness?
I have to agree with you about going through legal channels, though.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Insightful) by azrael on Tuesday July 29 2014, @06:11PM
Their business isn't making a film or writing a book, it is milking copyright.
I take your point, and you may be accurate that I should refer to the specific leeches for the given context. But I'm quite comfortable conflating the similar organisations into the 'copyright industry' and when I do so, even if it isn't perfectly accurate, I think I get my meaning across.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:45PM
The description is a bit vague but it sounds like the Sunblock company flags sites by adding them to a list. Advertisers then use that list to determine what they display. The London Police are using Sunblock lists to determined if a site is served their banner instead of legitimate advertising. So this system is not intercepting anything. The advertising company is blocking the site using a 3rd party list.
(Score: 3, Informative) by WizardFusion on Tuesday July 29 2014, @01:48PM
They clearly haven't heard of Adblock and NoScript.
(Score: 3, Informative) by azrael on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:07PM
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:09PM
Now for the trade-off:
You should allow ads on those sites so the ad revenue goes to the site :-)
-OR-
You should block ads on account that the cops may be tracking you :-(
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:40PM
Of course as a law-abiding citizen you should not support pirates, but fight them. That is, cut their revenue by blocking their ads, and at the same time cause them bandwidth cost by downloading all their material. ;-)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:05PM
I'm confused about the jurisdiction issues.
On this side of the pond only the feds are allowed to enforce or even consider fed level issues like immigration violations. Local cops are supposed to pretend illegals are citizens, actually a higher class of citizen than the locals, for example, at least on paper.
On that side of the pond, apparently local cops are trying to use taxpayer revenue to do PR for an American industry pressure group's job to increase profits of American media companies.
Its a weird contrast.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by azrael on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:09PM
See http://blog.easydns.org/2013/10/10/registrars-that-complied-with-shakedown-requests-may-now-be-in-violation-of-icann-transfers-policy/ [easydns.org] for some of their earlier exploits.
(Score: 3, Informative) by dublet on Tuesday July 29 2014, @03:00PM
This means that any fraud, corruption and financial crime in the UK (and often abroad) will be investigated by them.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome. [dublet.org]"
(Score: 1) by acharax on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:06PM
This'll, in all likelihood, make their stuff indistinguishable from a variety of copyright flavored ransomware that claims to come from "the police". They're seeking to imitate just the kind of ad-driven drive-by junk that leads many with technical inclinations to block ads in the first place (especially around those parts, because of the nature of the "legitimate" ads on many of these sites). Guess they're just unaware of that, seing how they're spending their valuable online "crimefighting" time doing errands for hollywood.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:07PM
Do the affected site's contracts with whomever serves ads allow them to serve these ads without paying?
If so, it's a really shitty deal and they ought to stop dealing with that company.
If not they ought to sue.
(Score: 2) by azrael on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:11PM
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:30PM
So, In an effort to fight piracy, the police decided it's a good idea to pay pirates for advertising space to put-in their anti-pirating materials?
It seems both Hollywood and their friends at law-enforcement haven't quite grasped the notion of a market model...
compiling...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MrGuy on Tuesday July 29 2014, @03:09PM
They're not financing pirates. Instead, they're stealing from alleged pirates.
They are using technology in conjunction with ISP's to strip the actual sites' paid-for ads, and REPLACE it with their ad. They are not compensating the owners of the sites in question for doing this.
In effect, they are seizing someone else's property (likely without court order), on an allegation that the owner of that property is acting illegally, and prohibiting them from earning revenue, likely again without court order.
The legality of this tactic is highly questionable, and should really scare anyone who cares about a free and open internet. But, hey, think of teh childrenz.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday July 29 2014, @03:46PM
I'm not too familiar with UK law, but isn't that unlawful assets forfeiture? Shouldn't there have been some conviction or at least a proceeding of some sort?
Funny thing is, I can imagine this being taken into court and the police using the argument that digital data isn't property... At which point the IP laws they're trying to protect would be firmly thrust against them... :)
compiling...
(Score: 2) by nukkel on Tuesday July 29 2014, @04:59PM
Yes, and santa claus exists, too
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 29 2014, @07:05PM
Hmm, on second thoughts, that might not be the wisest thing to have said.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday July 29 2014, @11:29PM
I can't help thinking that this approach is amusingly fitting:
The site owner's revenue depends on the visitors/downloaders that would choose to click on an ad; because they're not clicking (or are clicking on fake ads), the site owner is losing income.
The creator's revenue depends on audience members that would choose to purchase a copy; because they're obtaining their copies illegally, the creator is losing income.
Note: IMHO the majority of today's pirate/downloaders are just the equivalent of the folks that used second-hand shops 20 years ago (that is, students & poor people) and just like back then, they'll shift to buying legal copies once they can afford it.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29 2014, @02:30PM
"The City of London police has started placing banner advertisements on websites believed to be offering pirated content illegally."
As opposed to offering pirated content legally?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Tuesday July 29 2014, @04:39PM
Odd how the pro-MAFIAA posts are all anonymous. I welcome you to pirate my work as long as you're doing it for free. Not all of us copyright holders are scumbags like you and your employer, shill.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday July 29 2014, @06:33PM
Odd, I can't see how the post you replied to is pro-MAFIAA. It just points out a redundancy in the summary.
Permitted copying is not piracy, by definition.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Tuesday July 29 2014, @07:30PM
Bit of a nit to pick: if the original author has sold the distribution rights to his work to a publisher, and he himself is OK with the free distribution but he no longer owns the rights to it as such, then yes it is still piracy. An author should probably negotiate a marketing or promotional program that allows such things in limited instances, so as to stay on the right side of contract law, of course. An author could otherwise be accused of pirating his own work in such a case...
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Tuesday July 29 2014, @03:40PM
No one has ever explained how the City of London (which is not the city of London, but a small enclave inside it - if Times Square had a police department, they would be the City of New York police by analogy) was put in charge of worldwide copyright industry enforcement. How did they arrogate all this power to themselves, and why does anyone pay attention to them?
I don't expect an answer. I just wanted to use "arrogate" in a post.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Tuesday July 29 2014, @06:35PM
Simple. The City of London is where the money sits. And money is power.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday July 29 2014, @04:26PM
Harassing "pirates" is not serving the public.
If The City of London Police don't understand that, they need informing. Ought to have some of their powers and their name stripped, that would get the message across. Shouldn't get to call yourself "London Police" in any form if you don't serve the people of London. Shouldn't be allowed to pretend otherwise, not even to themselves. If they don't want to be thought of as nothing but a bunch of mob enforcers, they'd better listen.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fishybell on Tuesday July 29 2014, @07:42PM
Since the City of London [wikipedia.org] consists mostly of corporations (many of which have voting rights), they are indeed serving the public.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday July 31 2014, @04:44AM
Corporations are not the public.
I read a little about the City of London. Just because it's been around for centuries does not change the fact that it's a deceptive name. The whole setup stinks of a small group of powerful interests wearing the clothes of public servitude, trying to appear as if they have significant public support.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29 2014, @10:18PM
Agreed - I think it shows just how far the MAFIAA have had to go shopping to get any attention.