Nick Stringer, IAB UK, director of regulatory affairs, asks how can the UK digital advertising industry limit the risk of brand advertising on infringing copyright sites?

At the end of April, the UK Joint Industry Committee for Web Standards (JICWEBS) announced it had issued nine kite marks in its first round of accreditations for businesses complying with the Digital Trading Standards Group (DTSG) Good Practice Principles. This heralds another important industry step in increasing transparency in the market and realising the goal of minimising the risk of display ad misplacement. Nearly 40 ad businesses committed to the DTSG’s Principles when they were launched in December 2013, so other businesses will follow suit before the end of this summer.

The DTSG is an important cross-industry initiative for brand safety providing those in the display advertising ‘chain’ – from brand to publisher – with a clear framework to operate within, clarifying the rights and responsibilities within the process of ad trading. It has also been talked about as a potential solution to tackling specific and more contentious reputational risks, in particular copyright infringement: where display advertising supports sites accused of breaching copyright law. This has received a great level of interest in recent years, notably amongst policy-makers.

Determining whether or not a site is infringing copyright is not always a simple task. With a deficit of a common interpretation of what infringement looks like, the ad industry has – historically - not been able to respond collectively to calls from the creative industries community to pull display advertising from copyright infringing sites. Instead rights holder bodies have previously notified individual advertisers of instances of ad placement against infringing copyright, which has led to a piecemeal approach to the problem. That is until now.

Today the UK digital advertising industry is close to receiving a single, definitive and authoritative source of information about copyright infringement via what is known as the Infringing Website List (IWL). This will be available through the Police IP Crime Unit (PIPCU), and for all those involved in the trading and placement of display advertising. PIPCU, a unit held within the City of London Police, investigates reports of infringement and attempts to work with site owners to resolve infringement before employing disruptive tactics against those that continue to offend.

One of these disruptive tactics is to restrict the revenues received by infringing sites and one of the ways this now can be done is by using the IWL to throttle the advertising on such sites. Working in real-time, this will offer protection to brands in addition to ensuring that those who have resolved their infringement case are removed from the IWL. In March PIPCU announced the launch of an IWL portal, so that advertising businesses can now sign up to receive a live feed.  It will, for the first time, allow advertisers and agencies to point to a single source for infringement as part of their ad trading agreements in line with the DTSG’s Good Practice Principles.

This project has required a significant investment from a broad group of stakeholders, both within the digital advertising sector, the police and amongst representatives of rights holders. In testing across a limited portion of the display ad market last year, PIPCU reported a 12% decrease in ads from well-known brands against identified infringing sites and the number of ads for ‘harmful’ or inappropriate content went up significantly.

However, there is still work to do. To see a decrease in brand advertising on IWL sites there needs be the full cooperation of industry to the approach, both through uptake of the DTSG’s Good Practice Principles and the use of the IWL. This requires that advertisers and their agencies request the use of the IWL as part of their display ad trading agreements, and – in time - by working with DTSG compliant businesses. It is through these actions that advertisers can be assured of transparency in ad trading and a reduced risk in placement against IWL content.

This approach is not a magic bullet to the problem: it will never stop display advertising particularly when it is out of the control of reputable market players, for example those that promote malware or click fraud. However, this is a test case for other markets keen to tackle the issue of infringing copyright in a digital age.

Nick Stringer, IAB UK, director of regulatory affairs