Film and television writer and director Alec Berg, whom you may recognize from his work on such hit shows as “Seinfeld”, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, and “Silicon Valley,” and the movie The Dictator, penned an op-ed that ran today in The Hill.
In it, he thanked members of Congress for calling on the advertising industry to do more to stop the flow of ad revenue to pirate sites.
It sounds insane, but Honda, Toyota, Target, Kraft, Lego, and Claritin are spending gobs of money every day to finance theft – whether they know it or not.
According to The Wall Street Journal, a recent tour of the web revealed literally hundreds of so-called “file-sharing” websites offering stolen content that featured advertising paid for by all of the above companies. An ad for Velveeta ran before an illegally hosted episode of “Game of Thrones.” A Honda spot appeared alongside a pirated episode of “Mad Men.”
The advertising community has already taken steps to address this problem, and that’s commendable. But new technological tools are making it possible to do more to prevent ads from appearing on pirate sites. Like Congress, the creative community commends the advertising community for a good start, while asking them to do more to take the profit out of piracy.
The for-profit theft of creative works impacts the entire creative community. Together, we can advocate for policies and solutions that can reduce piracy and benefit individual creators and the overall creative economy.
Read full op-ed: Congress moves against ad-supported piracy
