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London Police Placing Anti-Piracy Warning Ads On Illegal Sites
mrspoonsi (2955715) writes "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. "When adverts from well known brands appear on illegal websites, they lend them a look of legitimacy and inadvertently fool consumers into thinking the site is authentic," said Detective Chief Inspector Andy Fyfe from the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (Pipcu). "This new initiative is another step forward for the unit in tackling IP crime and disrupting criminal profits. "Copyright infringing websites are making huge sums of money though advert placement, therefore disrupting advertising on these sites is crucial and this is why it is an integral part of Operation Creative.""
I think piratebay is very authentic, irrelevantly of what is thought of its legality.
Piracy sites have found a way to get the Police to pay them money. Whatever war on copyright infringement there might have been, I think it's safe to say that it is over.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
This site has pirated content illegally. Shut down your computer and get a life, or find a site that offers pirated content legally.
Haven't they heard of Adblock plus or Flashblock? How would I know (or care) if I was not on an official site if I turn off ad systems by defaults? But then again, if you are visiting these sites, you are most likely not looking for authentic software in the first place.
Apparently the rule "innocent until proven guilty" does not apply to "websites", as evidenced by the city of london police.
This police bunch, it is worth noting, is the police force of the "square mile", which is pretty much run by private corporations, making this essentially a private police force in government-backed livery. It is not strange that it would be acting "proactive" and "innovative" and whatnot in furtherance of private corporate goals.
Unless they have some special powers, I suppose the police will have to pay for those ads, just like the regular advertisers do. This would result in the police actively sponsoring these allegedly illegal sites. Can have interesting political repercussions.
Yet another reason to use AdBlock Plus.
What the fuck is "IP crime"?
The police department is now financially facilitating the spread of pirated material by paying to support the sites?
I think the take home message here is that in London internet users somehow ended up receiving relevant ads from well known brands.
I seem to have nothing but crap. Right now I'm staring at an advert for a phone from a brand which is virtually unheard of (though quite prevailent, Huawei), and some company called Brocade who have something to do with bridges from what I can tell?
Where do I get these mythical well known brands?
Giving how much tax money all these corporations are paying, with absolutely no dodging of any taxes, it's really great to see the police devote so much time and resources to protecting these companies' revenue streams. Almost all the murderers, rapists, and thieves have been locked up. There's very little to no fraud going on in any industries, especially the financial sector who has a primary hub in London. We should definitely cheer on the police in this latest endeavour of serving and protecting corporate interests.
....to include the word 'police' and their domain.
Well that took long.
Head over to the pirate bay to see ads for all your favorite brands...Russian women interested in American men...brought to you by Pepsi?
No site looks legitimate. I've gotten too many promises for things that aren't real, too many threats about viruses, even downloads are confusing on some sites now, with their being shady "Download This" links to make people click on them to get something that promises to be a download manager or whatever, but is really just crapware.
And no, no, PirateBay is not an exception.
London Police want to do something? I'd give them worldwide jurisdiction to hunt down and kill those criminals.
That is for the courts to decide, not the police, who somehow decided they can do whatever they like. Ahh look a totalitarian government, tyranny. And the people have no possible way to revolt against it because they gave up all their guns.
They better hop they don't get rounded up on trains like Hitler did, otherwise they are just a bunch of Nazi stooges, stupid for following along with it and allowing history to repeat, especially after what Germany did to them.
When adverts from well known brands appear on illegal websites, they lend them a look of legitimacy and inadvertently fool consumers into thinking the site is authentic
A smart move to place the police logo onto the site -- Users will think that when police vouches for it, it must have spying features, and leave the page.
But seriously: When they have control over the ad networks, they can simply take down the entire website: the ad networks have full access to the DOM. Why don't they try that?
Police said the ads would make it harder for piracy site owners to make their pages look authentic
No one confuses Rapidshare for BMG's official site. People go there specifically to download pirated content, full stop. Seeing police ads might scare a few people with the paranoia of thinking "the man" has caught them, but the other 99% of visitors will just thank the police for subsidizing their favorite warez sites.
Truly pathetic, Boys in Blue (Hmm, do Bobbies wear blue?)
The move comes as part of a continuing effort to stop piracy sites from earning money through advertising.
By... Um... Buying banner ads on piracy sites? BRILLIANT!
Are there a lot of pirate websites located in the city of London?
This is a really strange idea. I don't get it. I wonder if maybe the sites are run by criminal gangs the police were already trying to break up.
One thing I'd like to point out is that the City of London Police are not the same thing as the British Metropolitan Police. This was something that came up in an article a few months ago where the City of London Police were fighting against piracy. They're basically an area within London that has existed for hundreds of years under corporate rule.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
The City of London police are basically a corporate police force with an authority that does not go beyond the corporate-controlled City of London area.
It is worth stressing that: The City of London A city called London, capital of the UK and City of London Police Metropolitan Police (the police force for London). The City of London is a square mile of land governed by a plutocracy. The actions of their police force does not surprise me.
Mod me down now and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
...take care of this nuisance. Who in their right mind allows third party sites to run in their browser anyway?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Argh! Forgot to check for unicode stripping. Corrected.
It is worth stressing that: The City of London is not equal to A city called London, capital of the UK. The City of London Police is not equal to Metropolitan Police, the police force for London.
The City of London is a square mile of land governed by a plutocracy. The actions of their police force does not surprise me.
Mod me down now and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
Websites by themselves aren't "illegal". Using those terms gives undue legitimacy to copyright maximalists. What is meant here by "illegal" is that they host content which may be infringing on copyright.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Hey editors, the City of London Police is NOT the same as the London Police. To get a good understanding of the difference, please view The (secret) City of London, Part 1: History (less than 5 min) and then The (secret) City of London, Part 2: Government (less than 6 min).
JigJag
"The hallmark of humanity is the ability to move beyond sensory inputs" - Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
The City of London "Police" is more biased than any other Police force in the EU. The City of London has created a world-spanning tax haven network. Why don't they investigate that? Instead they are over-eager in stopping the small man's crime.
It seems to be based on an agreement between the syndication network and police. I'm sure the criminals behind pirate sites will quickly just switch to different syndication partners.
Do they mean http://www.projectsunblock.com... ?
Seems likely, and if so the ad serving network would have to cooperate in allowing sunblocks JS to be served to client browsers. I can only home the Met's and Cities finest have a 100% accurate blocklist, because it only takes one high profile false-positive and a suit for loss of earnings due to illegal seizure of assets to drain sunblock dry.
"Police said the ads would make it harder for piracy site owners to make their pages look authentic. "
If there's a big anti-piracy warning at the top of a site, then I will know I'm in the right place!
and it doesn't matter.
there shall be no such thing as piracy.
I'm pretty sure this will work as well as the unskippable FBI warning on DVD movies.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Am I the only one who has noticed that the dialogue has been shifted to "Pirates are making money" ?
This is an attempt to introduce a new meme so that it can be later built up:
"Those fat-cat pirates in their fancy cars and big homes are profiting on the backs of poor starving IP holders"...
While there's an opportunity to debate the good and bad of it, tapping into the advertising thread of web sites is novel to me. The legality question is similar to what WOT does, right? The plugin warns me about a site's reputation but I do have the option to proceed.
I wonder if any sites have filed suit against WOT?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
can the site owners sue because their site has been hijacked?
A tax is already levied in blank CDs and media, I wonder why our taxes have to be misused for the Police to work for the medias conglomerates for free.
I think I need copies of these banner-ads, and pay Google/whoever to put them on legit sites!
it's silly for the state to jump in and spend so much time, effort, and money on what is essentially a failure of business to demonstrate to people that their content is worth purchasing. free market rules, y'all
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Any relation to Barny Fife?
They should have evey right to do so for sites located in London. The London police have no legal authority to enforce laws outside their jurisdiction.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
The City of London is a semi-autonomous part of London which has special rules, and a separate government. https://www.google.com/url?sa=...
He effected a bored affect.
Over time you link banner in with a cookie, flash cookie and database cookie folders.
ie as with the first gen flash cookies you get a a unique ID and can be tracked online for a while.
What was once online marketing activities in 100KB deep in a browser is now todays police work.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Yes with the flow of cash old and new laws become an option. So you have a rush to set all aspects of streaming, p2p, downloading to a cash "moving" criminal legal standing.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The gov cares as the pay TV monopoly zones see having their wealth protected from all other providers.
You pay for months of pay tv to enjoy a new show per season. You dont get to enjoy each show from another nations computer company in near real time.
So expect to see a lot of pay tv efforts locally and internationally to protect each networked thiefdom .
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Vs. a tool that not only aids security, but also speed, reliability, & even anonymity (more efficiently by FAR vs. browser addons + even shoring up DNS redirect weakness):
APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:
http://start64.com/index.php?o...
(Details of benefits in link)
Summary:
---
A.) Hosts do more than:
1.) AdBlock ("souled-out" 2 Google/Crippled by default)
2.) Ghostery (Advertiser owned) - "Fox guards henhouse"
3.) Request Policy -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
B.) Hosts add reliability vs. downed/redirected dns (& overcome redirects on sites, /. beta as an example).
C.) Hosts secure vs. malicious domains too -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... w/ less added "moving parts" complexity/room 4 breakdown,
D.) Hosts files yield more:
1.) Speed (adblock & hardcodes fav sites - faster than remote dns)
2.) Security (vs. malicious domains serving malcontent + block spam/phish & trackers)
3.) Reliability (vs. downed or Kaminsky redirect vulnerable dns, 99% = unpatched vs. it & worst @ isp level + weak vs Fastflux + dynamic dns botnets)
4.) Anonymity (vs. dns request logs + dnsbl's).
---
* Hosts do more w/ less (1 file) @ faster levels (ring 0) vs redundant inefficient addons (slowing slower ring 3 browsers) via filtering 4 the IP stack (coded in C, loads w/ os, & 1st net resolver queried w\ 45++ yrs.of optimization).
* Addons = more complex + slow browsers in message passing (use a few concurrently & see) & are nullified by native browser methods - It's how Clarityray is destroying Adblock.
* Addons slowup slower usermode browsers layering on more - & bloat RAM consumption too + hugely excessive cpu use (4++gb extra in FireFox https://blog.mozilla.org/nneth...)
Work w/ a native kernelmode part - hosts files (An integrated part of the ip stack)
APK
P.S.=> "The premise is quite simple: Take something designed by nature & reprogram it to make it work for the body rather than against it..." - Dr. Alice Krippen: "I am legend"
...apk
It was about time somebody did anything against piracy. These bucaneers and freebooters infest the seven seas and are a threat to honest seafarers. Aye!
-- 29A the number of the Beast
it's a shame the Detective Chief's first name is not Barney