Another TAG Effort to Combat Online Piracy

On June 9, 2016, the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) announced that advertising agencies Interpublic and Omnicom as well as Google, Go Daddy, and Bayer Consumer Health have joined its voluntary initiative that is aimed at preventing ad placement on websites which facilitate the distribution of pirated content and/or the illegal dissemination of counterfeit goods. (See this February 2015 blog for more on TAG.)

The addition of these companies and advertising agencies to TAG’s ongoing initiative should be helpful in reducing the $2.4 billion that legitimate content creators and entrepreneurs lose to pirated websites each year. In 2014, ad-supported piracy generated $204 million in aggregate revenue according the Digital Citizen’s Alliance. Without the use of Google’s search engine facilitating as much distribution of illegal content, piracy loss should be meaningfully reduced. Google’s support, if implemented properly, should mean YouTube users will not be able to generate ad-supported revenue from pirated content.

It is necessary to address, and diminish, piracy and content theft through voluntary initiatives like TAG's that help ensure that content creators, artists, innovators, and marketers can earn a return on their creative works!