Advertising Services Blamed for Promoting Piracy

Some experts point out that the content industries may soon disappear entirely, only because of online piracy. That’s what a recent report claims, pointing to advertising companies like Google and Yahoo and blaming them of linking to piracy.




The report claims that Google’s AdSense and other similar advertising services promoting file-sharing sites may soon bankrupt the content industry. Apparently, the report in question hopes to make advertising services feel ashamed and make them drop their business contracts in order to cut the financial cord of file-sharing websites.

Google reacted like any company with a logical point of view, claiming that just because some of its code appears on a portal which promotes piracy does not necessarily mean the search giant does it as well.

The report has placed Google and Yahoo on the top 10 advertising companies which are accused of providing support to major piracy portals throughout the globe. It made the conclusion based on the analysis of Internet advertisements which receive the most copyright infringement notices. One of the researchers was telling the story of his singer friend who had no financial problems until the early 2000s. That was the moment when his medical bills for throat cancer remained unpaid. As a result, the singer had to start touring again, all because of piracy.

Well, one could only sympathize to cancer patient, but it is unclear how his illness has to do with anything. Perhaps, the singer should blame the health care system instead of piracy – actually, he had no financial problems for a few years, without doing anything at all. Instead, the industry should consider the fact that it is unable to accept such streaming services as Spotify into their business plans.

Finally, the researchers should get their data straight. The sites like The Pirate Bay are obviously hosting a lot of legitimate and original material, along with being involved with promoting young musicians via their Promo Bay site. If their financial flow is disrupted, it may affect consumers using these services for legal business like the singer from the story.