White Bullet’s collaboration with Poland’s Sygnal Association significantly reduces ad-funded piracy in key European market

IP protection and cyber safety company, White Bullet, today announces that its ongoing collaboration with the Sygnal Association in Poland continues to have a significant impact in the market; with its latest Ad Funded Piracy Report showing further, marked reductions in ad-funded piracy in the country.

The Sygnal Association, established in 2001, protects the intellectual property rights of broadcasters, distributors, licensors, and recipients of TV programmes and other multimedia content. White Bullet has now been working alongside its members for over a year to track advertising in Poland in order to monitor the effectiveness of the piracy website list maintained and provided by Sygnal to the Polish ad industry; with the cyber security company providing quarterly updates around trends in ad impressions and revenue.

White Bullet’s Q2 2022 Ad Funded Piracy Report provides ad monitoring analysis of Sygnal-listed websites and outlines trends in ad impressions and revenue on Polish IP-infringing Sygnal websites during the latest quarter. It also provides an updated snapshot of the advertising landscape in Poland on Sygnal websites, in addition to further trend analysis.

For instance, estimated ad revenue generated by Polish traffic decreased by 39 per cent on the websites monitored during this period. Furthermore, just ten websites account for over two thirds of estimated ad revenue identified.

Other highlights include the fact that estimated ad revenue generated by Polish traffic decreased to 4 per cent on the websites monitored, with remaining traffic coming from the rest of the world. Meanwhile, major brand ads decreased from 5 per cent in the April 2022 report to 4 per cent in the July 2022 report – evidence of clear progress being made in this market.

Drilling down further into the data, 74 unique brands were identified advertising on the monitored sites, 22 per cent of which are major (household name) brands, while 140 ad intermediaries were identified as serving or facilitating ads on the websites monitored.

“Our data shows that there continue to be clear advantages for brands using this list and we are delighted to continue to support Sygnal as it works to defund online piracy,” said White Bullet Founder and CEO, Peter Szyszko. “The Association plays an extremely important role by providing a policy forum; helping legitimate players to use and protect their IP for economic, social and cultural development. Systems like these need to be used globally, with lists which are dynamic and up to date. By working together, ideally on a global scale, we can beat online piracy.”

The Sygnal Association’s Teresa Wierzbowska, President of the Management Board, added: “It’s been eye-opening to compare the latest updates with the previous editions – showing what’s working and what we still need to improve in our follow-the-money action. For instance, Arts and Entertainment sector ads decreased from 88 per cent in the April 2022 report to 44 per cent in the July report but were overtaken by Technology and Computing sector ads, at 51 per cent according to the latest data.

“Sygnal continues to provide its members with a valuable opportunity to co-operate and share experiences. We remain keen to collaborate with other organisations pursuing shared goals. White Bullet’s platform and expertise is helping us significantly in our mission.”

White Bullet has stopped millions of pounds of ad spend from funding piracy by collaborating with brands, advertisers, regulators and rights owners. The data and insights for this report were taken from IPIP, its Intellectual Property Infringement Platform, which is designed to make the job of detecting fraudulent content easier. By connecting rights owners and the advertising industry with real-time data about piracy risk, so all parties can take action, White Bullet’s solutions allow clients to understand the universe of piracy and to stop it from generating revenue.