Dabei handelt es sich um einen Stirlingmotor, der Energie durch kleine Temperaturunterschiede erzeugen kann – und dafür nicht einmal im Weltall sein muss. (Strom, Energie)
A new report published by the EU Intellectual Property Office reveals an alarming 567% surge in major brand advertising on pirate sites, which is linked to the termination of industry outreach programs. However, a closer look at the data reveals an even more spectacular finding that’s largely overlooked. Since 2021, total ad impressions on pirate sites have plummeted by 80%.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
For many pirate sites and apps, ad revenue is the only viable lifeline. This is why the advertising industry is an important ally in the fight against piracy.
Over the years, several ad-focused anti-piracy initiatives and partnerships have tried to prevent branded ads from appearing on these sites.
This includes a European Union-led Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in which several leading advertising companies, including Google, signed up to play their part. The origins of this agreement date back to 2016, and the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) has monitored progress ever since.
The latest report on the state of the pirate advertising landscape was published this week. As in previous years, the EUIPO commissioned UK-based research firm White Bullet to provide a detailed overview of what types of ads appeared on pirate sites throughout 2024.
The report looked at advertisements on 7,250 websites and 398 mobile applications across 18 EU member states. All ‘pirate’ sites and apps provided access to copyright-infringing content and were classified as either “illegal” or “high-risk”.
White Bullet compiled a similar advertising report for EUIPO in 2021, which makes it possible to measure progress over the past four years.
The headline figures reported by EUIPO this week suggest that advertising volume on piracy sites grew rapidly throughout last year. Globally (EU+UK+US), the monitored websites generated 28.3 billion ad impressions over the year, with a 92% increase in impressions from the first to the fourth quarter.
More concerning, perhaps, is that adverts run by major brands are still common on pirate sites. No names are mentioned in the report, but EUIPO notes that advertising impressions from major brands increased 567% between 2021 and 2024.
Overall, branded advertising accounted for 61% of ad impressions on monitored websites and 96% on the monitored apps. This includes ads for both major and less-well known brands.
The EUIPO highlights this significant increase in its “main conclusions” alongside some other concerning developments.
The report explicitly links this resurgence of major brand ads to a breakdown in industry cooperation, noting that education campaigns for advertisers were halted right before the spike occurred.
“The massive growth in Major Brand advertising on IPR-infringing websites may be correlated with the 2023 termination of several coordinated outreach programmes focused on educating brands that had been placing advertising on IPR-infringing websites,” EUIPO’s report reads.
While the headline numbers reported by EUIPO are correct, they deserve some nuance. The number of ad impressions on pirate sites by major brands did not increase 567%; not by a long shot.
What the report found is that major brand ads went from just 3% of all ad impressions on websites in 2021, to 20% of all ad impressions in 2024. While that technically represents a 567% increase in market share, the number of displayed ads tanked at the same time.
Across all monitored countries, ad impressions on pirate sites crashed from 146.1 billion in 2021 to 28.3 billion in 2024. So, the total number of ads on these sites fell by roughly 80%.
While the “567% increase” statistic is technically accurate when looking at relative market share, the increase is largely driven by the collapse of low-quality, non-brand ads. In real terms, the number of major brand ads served increased by roughly 30%.
The same logic applies to a reported surge in fraud and malware advertising, which was also highlighted in the EUIPO’s main conclusions.
“The report also notes a 250% increase in fraud and malware advertising from 2021 to 2024, showing that infringing websites not only exploit brand reputations but also expose users and advertisers to broader digital risks,” EUIPO writes.
Again, this 250% increase is relative. Looking at the absolute numbers, fraud and malware ads actually decreased by roughly 1.8 billion impressions from 2021 to 2024. That’s roughly a ~31% reduction in malicious ads.
The above makes it clear that absolute and relative comparisons can show an entirely different picture. This is largely attributable to a key change that took place over the past few years, which, strangely enough, is not mentioned in EUIPO’s main conclusions.
The fact that the EUIPO report found an unprecedented 80% drop in pirate site ads receives very little attention. Yet, the numbers clearly show that, in the 18 monitored EU Member States, pirate site ad impressions also plunged: from 70.3 billion in 2021 to 14.4 billion in 2024.
The report links this drastic decline to an increasingly fragmented landscape of pirate sites, leading to lower traffic numbers overall. That sounds like a welcome result, but in the report the finding receives no obvious emphasis.
The same applies to the associated decrease in advertising revenue for pirate sites. The report notes that the advertising revenues from the monitored countries dropped 78%, from €102.5 million in 2021 to €22 million last year.
While the EUIPO focuses mostly on the relative increases of major brand ads and fraud advertisements, one key number was not highlighted. That is, the average estimated revenue these 7,250 sites generate per day from visitors in the 18 monitored EU countries.
That number is not reported, but if we crunch the numbers, we see that the average pirate site generates roughly €8.29 per day from these EU users.
The EUIPO report puts the global revenue of these sites at ~€91 per day. This leads to the logical conclusion that the EU advertising traffic only represents a fraction of the total income of these sites. That’s worth calling out, we think.
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The full report, which includes many more data points and intriguing statistics, is available here (pdf).
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
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